


Stark's Progress

by Dillian



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Sinclair Lewis's It Can't Happen Here, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU -- Fascist United States, AU- 1930's, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Prison camps, Torture, United States under fascism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-07-27 12:54:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 21,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7618849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillian/pseuds/Dillian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sinclair Lewis once famously said, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”  This is a story about what would happen if Tony Stark lived in a world where that had happened.</p>
<p>He's an American inventor, co-owner of an aeronautics company.  He meets Loki Von Borson, second son of the head of Produktionszentrum Von Borson, and they have a liaison.  Later on, his co-owner and friend, Obadiah Stane, finds out about him and Loki, and uses the information to take the company for himself.  I can tell you that part, because it doesn't need to be a surprise.  I can also tell you Tony ends up in a prison camp, and that there is probably going to be some torture in here.  The rest is a surprise.  Read the story if you want  to find out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here is what you need to know for context: Berzelius Windrip is President of the United States. Secretary of State is Lee Saranson, Secretary of War is Osceola Luthorne. Their political party is the Corporate Party, and their brownshirts are called the Minute Men.
> 
> ( _It Can't Happen Here_ is an amazing book by the way, and if you haven't read it yet, you probably should. You might want to wait until after the November election though, it makes for kind of a scary read, right now.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “The real trouble with the Jews is that they are cruel. Anybody with a knowledge of history knows how they tortured poor debtors in the catacombs, all through the Middle Ages. Whereas the Nordic is distinguished by his gentleness and his kind-heartedness to friends, children, dogs, and people of inferior races.”  
> \-- _Zero Hour_ , Berzelius Windrip

_**The Avengers** _ **,** _**Iron Man** _ **, and** _**Thor** _ **, and all situations and characters thereof, belong strictly and solely to Marvel Comics.** _**It Can't Happen Here** _ **, by Sinclair Lewis, is in the public domain, I'm pretty sure, but just in case someone does hold the copyright, I'll just say that I don't own it either. This is a fan-work, meant for enjoyment only, and not for any material profit.**

Everyone's heard of the Von Borsons, big-time German munitions family, back to the time of Noah's Flood, or something like that. I'd been hearing about 'em for I don't know how long, Dad used to say there was no imagination there, but Obie would say they should be role models. He said that's what Stark Air should be, it should be a dynasty like that. I used to tell him, first I had to have some kids, and he would laugh. Then in 1937, I met my first Von Borson. I haven't quite gotten around to the kids yet.

It was spring, hot, the way it always gets hot really early in Paso Robles. I'd been hearing Obie jaw about the Von Borsons all year, our new alliance with Germany had opened a door or something, and he was going to set up some kind of a merger. I hadn't had time to pay much attention. I was busy, finally we had a President in office who was open to listening to my ideas about air power. I'd seen Billy Mitchell's tests, back during the 20's, and I knew I could build on them, create something that would put the Luftwaffe to shame. President Windrip said the money was there. He sent Secretary Luthorne out, and he gave me the go-ahead. After that, my days were mostly designing, building, and testing.

And then it was May... I think. Frankly, I don't remember exactly when it was. It was right after we got the go-ahead from Camp Roberts to test the Mark III there, I'd lined with Rhodey to be my pilot, and Pep had all the materials I needed on-order. There's this itchy feeling you get, when you can't actually be building stuff. I'd done the calculations for the Mark III about 100 times, there were things that were wrong about the Mark II, and I wanted to fix 'em. Blueprints said I had fixed 'em, and there were the models, and they looked great, they looked wonderful, but you never know these things for sure, until you can put the damn thing together. Then one day Obie shows up in Paso, he says I've got to get all caked-up, make nice with some German diplomat or another. I put on the old white-tie-and-tails, and I get Pep to be my date, and then I go out to meet him.

Loki was... I don't know. He was like nothing I'd ever met before, European, that's how he was. We were meeting at this restaurant in Frisco, place Obie likes, on the Gold Coast. I was expecting one of these new Nazi ubermensch-types, but then I go in there, and I see this green-eyed Trickster. I'm not a queer, but I think I am abnormal. Probably I should seek medical help, it's probably something about my upbringing, maybe my mother was too clingy (only she wasn't, really). My sex-drive's always had some kinks in it, I can go for women all right, I go for women all the time, but then sometimes I'll meet a guy, and he just does it for me. Loki was one of those guys.

Restaurant was really crowded, I remember. I went in, I had Pepper on my arm. She was looking really beautiful that night, hair up and sort of curly-looking, this blue-satin number on, that was pure class, made her look like something out of the Social Register. There'd always been sort of a spark between her and me, even though we'd never done anything about it. That night I wanted to do something about it. Pep always said she couldn't afford to go out with me, she wanted people to know she'd gotten ahead for her ability, but I saw how she looked at me, and I could feel the tension between us, and we both knew anything could happen.

Neither of us was prepared for what did happen, though. I walked into that restaurant with a beautiful woman on my arm, a woman who was interested in me, I was interested too, and we both knew tonight was tonight was the night something was maybe going to come of it. And then that was the night I met Loki...

He had champagne ready for us, when we got to the table. And he was eating this really European-looking appetizer, mound of meat that looked raw, little shriveled greenish dots all over it, and a pile of Melba toast to the side. Most disgusting-looking thing that you ever saw, worse than anything I saw when I was in Paris with the AEF. Loki was spooning some of the the raw-meat stuff onto a piece of toast when we came in, then he heard us, and he looked up.

Sometimes you just know when you can get into another man's pants, and Loki had that look about him. He wasn't queer-looking though, not like you see 'em in America. Loki looked like he'd do anything, and the food helped, that weird, slimy stuff he was eating, that made you think maybe his tastes weren't quite normal. Pep and I went ahead and sat down... I guess I was staring at Loki a little bit, because he caught my eye. Toast with raw-meat slime in his hand, and it goes toward his mouth. His green eyes were looking at me, and he had his mouth open. Soft-looking lips, and I'm watching them, and his tongue came out, just barely traced itself around those soft, pink lips. He took a bite of the toast, chewed it, and swallowed, and then he smiled at me.

Everything was in that smile, that he knew I was disgusted by the food, and he didn't care, and that he knew I was attracted to him, and that I was a little disgusted by that too. ...Not disgusted exactly, I don't know. You have to come to terms with yourself, and I know there's always going to be men for me, as well as women. I don't care about that, I'd be getting myself psychoanalyzed for it by now if I did, wouldn't I? Loki's look said that he knew it was a problem for me is what it was, I think. It said, “I know this scares you, but it doesn't scare me, in fact, I like it.”

The night at the restaurant was hell for all of us. Loki kept pushing, and he got to me, and it showed. Pepper kept trying to bring the conversation back around to business, and she kept failing. After a while she noticed what was going on between Loki and me. I could see it when it happened, I could see how her face fell. After that I was full of shame, and I tried to focus on her, but the damage was done. Finally when we were done eating, I took her back to our hotel. She didn't ask me what I was going to do when I left her room, but I didn't tell her, and we both knew I was going back to Loki.

He was waiting at the same restaurant where we'd had dinner, just like I knew he was going to be. “You Americans always have to rush everything,” he'd said. “You've barely finished eating, and now you're leaving.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked him.

He said, “I'm going to stay, and finish my meal properly.”

He'd moved to a smaller table, when I got back there. He had one of those cheese plates Europeans like, in front of him, what they like eating over there after dinner, instead of dessert. Glass full of brandy, and this plate full of cheeses, some of them moldy and oozing, and he hears me coming, and he looks up, smiles his trickster-smile.

“I shall have to expand your American tastes,” he told me that night. That meant the cheeses. It meant the perfect brandy, Debriac cognac, vintage, 1917. It meant what we did after we left the restaurant. His hotel, not mine. He brought out cocaine, I remember. “To heighten the experience,” he said. We snorted it with a rolled-up Nazi deutschemark, and then we had sex.

He took me. I'd never let a man take me before, it seemed undignified. But Loki didn't bother asking, he just assumed I was going to let him, and I did, and it was... What should I say, it was memorable? It was, but it was more than that. It was like being given a chance at a whole new world. “The feeling,” Loki said, “it is like nothing else, isn't it?” He found pleasure-centers inside me that I hadn't known I had. He woke them up, and he pleased them, and then after he finished, they were begging for more. We spent the whole night at it, him and me, in his bed, him between my legs, and me with my knees up, practically howling with pleasure.

We had to reschedule to get our business done, a second meeting, over breakfast, at Loki's hotel. Pepper came over in the nice little sporting outfit she'd brought along to drive home in. I was still in my tie-and-tails from the night before, and she looked put-out with me. I couldn't say I blamed her. She took care of what needed to be taken care of, Loki was very amenable.

Afterward I couldn't help asking him, “Am I going to see you again?”

He gave me one of those trickster-smiles. “I shall make every effort to be assigned to your account, Herr Stark,” he said.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “(7) Our armaments and the size of our military and naval establishments shall be consistently enlarged until they shall equal, but – since this country has no desire for foreign conquest of any kind – not surpass, in every branch of the forces of defense, the martial strength of any other single country or empire in the world. Upon inauguration, this League and Party shall make this its first obligation, together with the issuance of a firm proclamation to all nations of the world that our armed forces are to be maintained solely for the purpose of insuring world peace and amity.”  
> – campaign platform, 1936: “The Fifteen Points of Victory for the Forgotten Man”

Loki used to cable when he was coming to California... – Sorry, when he was coming to the Mountain/Pacific Province, which, if you haven't been keeping up with developments in the States, is what we now call Northern California, along with the rest of the Pacific Northwest. Not being a Californian originally myself, I can't say I really cared when the Corpos changed the name, but you used to hear people screaming about it all over. – What was I telling you about? Loki, that's right. He'd cable, I'd find some excuse or another to go to San Francisco and meet him. Mrs. Arbogast used to reserve me a room for me at the hotel Loki liked. She was a good woman, trustworthy. And also smart, I know she figured out quick, I didn't really need the room, I'd be sharing Loki's. She'd go ahead and make the reservation anyway, and she never said a word about it to anyone, until...

I'm getting ahead of my story. I'm also getting started on the sad parts, well before I have to. And for that matter, I don't really know anything about what happened to Mrs. A. Last I saw of her was that day in court. I saw the look on Killian's face when she gave her testimony, but that doesn't prove anything happened. Killian always looks like that.

I'm going to do my best to tell you this thing, as clearly and simply as I can. It's about all I can do at this point, now that my life's work's been taken from me. First of all... Well, at first it felt like the best time of my entire life. It felt like the whole world was spread out in front of me, everything you could want, creativity, and friendship, and... whatever you would call that, that Loki and I had together. That was the time that I finally stepped completely out of the luxury airplane business.- Not that Stark Air didn't still handle 'em, you understand, but I handed control of that division over to Pepper, once the war contracts started coming in.

These were my days, back then, this is what it felt like: Long nights, spent working on my designs, and then I'd hand those over to the build-team in the morning. Then when the prototypes were done, I used to have Rhodey do the test-flights. Then after that we'd go out, maybe have a few drinks, or I'd take Pepper out to a club, or maybe take in a show with her. Then sometimes Loki would be in the area, and I'd go to him... They say starving men are haunted by the memories of meals they've eaten in the past. I must be starved for friendship, because it seems like all I think about anymore are those days when I had my friends around me.

And where are they now? I'll get letters from Pepper, sometimes. She's married to Killian now, which is a lot better than what could have happened. Fortunately the Corpos don't have much of an opinion of women's intelligence, so they don't believe she did half of what she really did. She says she sees Rhodey sometimes, he's a shoeshine boy with some company, down in L.A. She says he asks after me every time she sees him. I don't blame him for not writing. That's one of the things that always sets 'em off, is when they find a black man who can read and write.

...Where was I? I was talking about the time, right after I met Loki. Those halcyon days, during the first Windrip Administration, when everything was fine, and I was on top of the world. And of all the things that were going on, I think the most important one was the thing with Loki.

He educated me, Loki did. I was a crass American, and the first time I went to that hotel of his, I thought it was nothing. My idea of a hotel back then, was a big bathroom, a tap in the sink, with ice water, so you could get a drink, lot of boys everywhere, who would take your luggage, tell you, “Yessuh,” and, “Nossuh,” big white grin on their black faces, while they waited for you to tip 'em at your room. Loki took me up to his room that time, and he showed me around. Antique furniture? I didn't know antique furniture from a hole in the ground, in those days. And hardwoods, and hand-loomed carpets? I spent my days with steel and fiberglass, and the only hand-loomed anything I knew was the upholstery on the seats for those damn luxury planes I used to make, before I palmed the job off on Pepper.

Dinner out that night, same deal. Escargots... You know what those are? They're snails. We were at this French restaurant, and Loki ordered them. They came to the table, and I was horrified, and Loki laughed in my face. “You Americans are such cowards,” he told me. “Don't you know you have to try everything, before you know what you like?” And he made me mad, even though I already knew by then, that was what he was like. I took his little snail fork from him, and I speared into one of the shells on his plate. Only managed to splash garlic butter all over his shirtfront, and then he laughed even more. Then he took the fork and got one of the snails out for me. He gave me the fork. “I'd feed this to you myself,” I remember him saying, “only...” He gestured around, and I saw the blue uniforms at the other tables. “Our friends might not approve of that, would they?”

We sat late over dinner that night, just like we always did when we were together. Even so, we left before the Minute Men, who always seem to run mostly to drinkers. After that, we went back to our hotel, Loki's room, of course, not mine. I felt a stab of apprehension, I remember, as we went up in the elevator together. I didn't know why then, but I think I do now. I'd started to develop feelings for him, see. Even knowing what he was, even though I didn't admit it to myself yet then, they were already there. There is all the difference in the world, between a night like that when it's just sex, and one where there are feelings involved.

Oh well, I'd better finish this story...

Here's something you have to understand: I'm telling you this once. And you'll hear it, and maybe you'll remember it, maybe you'll forget it. This plays out in my head, all the time. It's what I think about when I wake up in my empty bed, in my lonely room, and it's what gets me to sleep at night, those nights when it doesn't keep me from sleeping, anyway. This is all I am, is this story: How it felt like I had paradise, and how it was ripped away. You want to know what motivates men to action? That's it, right there, all the great actions of this world are just an ordinary man, and he's lost his home, and now he'll do anything he can, to regain it.

Never mind. Where was I? Loki was tender that night, I remember. He undressed me, and he kept kissing me all over, while he was doing it. “Have you been with anyone else since I saw you?” I remember him asking.

And I said, “No.”

He looked at me, something warm, almost jealous, in those green eyes, but his face still smiling. “Not even that redhead of yours?”

“Pepper's just a friend,” I told him.

He gave a short laugh, said, “She wants to be more than a friend.” And after that, his face changed, like he was putting something away from him, by effort of will. “Never mind.” His voice was cajoling. “Come to me, Anthony. Give me what I want, give me everything.”

That was how he was. He could be changeable like that, but when he wanted you, he wanted all of you, all your heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. But he could give as good as he got, and not just in the sexual aspect, but in everything. I remember laughing with him. I remember listening to music, one tear tangled in his dark eyelashes, at the perfection of a single note. And I remember saying good-bye... But I'm not there yet, and I don't want to be, and I'm going to linger on the good parts of the story.

That was a perfect night, long, and slow, and luxurious with passion. Then the next day we had breakfast in his hotel room. “I love an American breakfast,” I remember him saying. “It is one of the few things you do really well here.” And he ordered us a huge one, bacon, and three kinds of eggs, little curls of pink, sugar-cured ham, and toast, dripping with butter. We drank cup after cup of coffee. “Real cream,” he exalted. “And so much of it!” I remember I didn't understand the excitement, scarcity hadn't come to America yet, back then.

After that it was time to say good-bye. “When will I see you again?” I asked him.

Loki looked at me, those green eyes of his meeting mine, feeling like they searched them, for... For what? I still don't know. “That is up to you,” he said. “How often do you want to see me?”

It was after that, that we set up the exchange: Von Borson engineers, coming to work at Stark, and some of our men going over there. And there was the design-exchange... “All your designs?” I remember Loki asking.

And I gave him a smile. “Not all of them.”

He smiled back at me, like a co-conspirator. “Of course not, we shall not share our best designs either.”

You want to know why I worry about Germany? I built half the Luftwaffe, I know what they're capable of. And you should worry about the Corpos, too. I know what I built for 'em, and I know what it can do. This next war is going to be a doozy when it comes.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “(12) All women now employed shall, as rapidly as possible, except in such peculiarly feminine spheres of activity as nursing and beauty parlors, be assisted to return to their incomparably sacred duties as home-makers and as mothers of strong, honorable future Citizens of the Commonwealth.”  
> – campaign platform, 1936: “The Fifteen Points of Victory for the Forgotten Man”

Pepper Potts – Should I call her Mrs. Aldrich Killian now? You don't have any idea how wrong that sounds. – Pepper _Potts_ : She's a very special woman. She's brave... I knew she was in love with me, I knew it back during the 20's, when she was still my private secretary. Worst thing I ever did to her, was when I asked her to marry me. And I knew what I was, by then I knew I didn't want a real marriage. So why did I ask her anyway? Selfishness, pure selfishness. I was a man on the rise, and there were places I needed to go, not just business meetings, but social events. You have no idea how much business is transacted at those things. I needed a woman on my arm to blend in, and I thought, “Well, she's my friend,” and so I asked her.

I'll never forget the look she gave me when I did it, her face still perfectly calm, just a little bit of pain that she couldn't hide, in those lovely blue eyes of hers. “Thank you but no,” she said. “You see, I don't love you, Tony.” She walked away, both of us knowing it was a lie, but she held onto her dignity the whole time. That beautiful, brave girl. I remember her walking away, her shoulders so straight, every hair of that bobbed-hairstyle she was wearing back then, exactly in place. I remember Mrs. Arbogast reading me the riot act afterward, when she found out, and that I knew I deserved it. I just wish I remembered apologizing to Pepper, but I don't, because I didn't do it. Just one of the many things I've done wrong in my life, to people who deserved better.

At the time, I told myself that we could be just friends. I told myself that the business advancements I was giving Pep more than made up for what I couldn't give her, and that, I did believe. Pepper's an ambitious girl. She's smart, and she's got the kind of grit you usually think of only men having. Either that, or only a really ugly woman. First time I met her, was right after the war. I was 20 years old, just back from France, working on the production line at Stark Air, because Dad wanted me to learn the business from the bottom. One day I was upstairs in the business offices, I don't remember why, and I walk past the desks where the stenographers were, and I see this flash of red, red hair.

She was wearing a white shirtwaist and a black skirt, just like the rest of the steno-girls, but she had this bow at her neck, this bright pink bow that made her stand out from the rest of them. I remember going over, wanting to start a conversation just because she had stood out, because she seemed more interesting somehow, than any of the others did.

“Don't you know redheads shouldn't wear pink?” I asked her.

She looked at me, intelligence flashing in her blue eyes... What she looked like: You remember screwball comedies? Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbert, those ladies? Remember when a lady could look intelligent in a film, back in the good old days, before moving pictures were all propaganda? Pepper looked like one of those girls, you saw her and you knew she would never make anything easy. I saw her, and I knew here was a woman I wanted to spend more time with. I knew I wasn't... shall we say normal? Maybe not, maybe that's a bad way to put it. Let me put it this way, a man knows what he's like by age 20, and he knows pretty well, where his sexual urges lie. I knew mine were never going to lead me to Pepper, but that stop me wanting to get to know her. There was a lot more than sex to attract someone to her.

...I was saying though, about that first day when she looked at me, steely intelligence in her eyes, but leavened with a sense of humor: She looks up, smiles right into my eyes. “Redheads can wear whatever they want to,” she says.

That was the day the rumor started that I was interested in Pepper. We talked together, for a long time, me teasing her about being a fiery redhead, her teasing me about the head of the company being my father. She asked if he was, I told her, was she trying to get a promotion out of me? That kind of thing. Finally, one of the managers came out and told us to cut it out, and I went back to the production line. And then afterward, the talking started. You would hear it, this one saying how it was a good break for her, to marry into a fortune, another one saying how I was the one getting a break, a college dropout like me, marrying a girl with a degree from Salem Normal School. I always told people there was nothing to it, of course, and Pep did too. But you know how it is, people always think there's only one reason why a man could like a woman.

I gave Pepper all the opportunities she wanted, after Dad died in 1925 and I took over the company. She was my private secretary then, and right away I put her in management. Right from the start, Obie was always complaining about that. It was always something with him, first that the men on the production line wouldn't respect a woman, and then that our competitors weren't going to, if it wasn't one thing, it was another. I would point out what a great job she'd always done in all the other capacities we'd had her in, and he'd just say, “Well she's a woman, how far does she think she can go?”

He'd tell me I put my confidence in the wrong people. He was always saying that, he said the same thing about Rhodey. It always made me angry, but I used to discount it. It wasn't until long after that, that I found out he was one of the people I shouldn't have put confidence in.

I was right about Pep and Rhodey, though. Both of them wanted what was best for the company, but they weren't like Obie, they never let it get in the way of morality. I knew they were true-blue then, and I still know it now. Wherever they go, and whatever they do... God, I hope they stay safe! I almost would rather that they were like Obie, a man like that won't have any trouble surviving no matter what happens.

Never mind. What I want to do here, I want to introduce you to the two best friends I've ever had in my life. One is Pepper, and I've told you about her, now I want to tell you some about Rhodey:

I met him while I was overseas. He was with the Harlem Hellfighters, got wounded during the Second Battle of the Marne. He was a West Point graduate, but there wasn't much of a future for a black man in the Army, even then, and when I offered him a job with Stark after I took over, he was ready to come join me. Smartest flyer I ever saw. He could make a plane do things you wouldn't believe. I remember one time, seeing him do a Cuban Eight, out over the Pacific Ocean... But you probably don't want to hear about that, do you?

He was good, anyway. And he was a great fellow, a really good companion. I remember joking with him, while I was teaching him flying: “You can't learn everything out of books,” I'd say.

He'd say, “Oh really? What's a roughneck like you got, that he could teach me?”

Roughneck, grease-monkey, dropout... You know how men are, we trade jokes to show our friendship. Rhodey and I used to do that. We used to get together after work, although that was hard of course, because of the color-bar. Most places didn't allow blacks in, even back then. We'd go to the Negro bars sometimes, but that didn't work either, and neither of us would feel comfortable. Usually we'd just go to his house, or mine. Sometimes Pep would come too, and you should have heard Obie scream about that.

...Not scream. Obie didn't scream, that was never his way. He'd tut-tut the way he always did, the way that kept me thinking he was my friend, for way too long. “Do you really think that's wise?” he'd say. – About everything, not just about that. – “I know you're just doing it out of your good-heartedness, Tony, but don't you see how people will talk?”

Did they talk? Back then, I mean, because I know they did later, but were they talking about me then? I guess... probably. America's always been such a prejudiced country, ever since... I don't know, since the Civil War? At least? Everybody's always got to stay in their own place, the black man here, and the white man always above him. And don't even get me started, talking about women, they don't get a fair shake anywhere. Can you tell me I'm wrong about that? You know I'm not.

Probably, they were talking the whole time, probably I should have just laid low and kept my head down, like Obie said. Probably I brought everything down on myself, by not listening to him, but you know how it is, I was young, I wanted to live life on my own terms.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “(10) All Negroes shall be prohibited from voting, holding public office, practicing law, medicine, or teaching in any class above the grade of grammar school, and they shall be taxed 100 per cent of all sums in excess of $10,000 dollars per family per year which they may earn or in any other manner receive. In order, however, to give the most sympathetic aid possible to all Negroes who comprehend their proper and valuable place in society, all colored persons, male or female, as can prove that they have devoted not less than forty-five years to such suitable tasks as domestic service, agricultural labor, and common labor in industries, shall at the age of sixty-five be permitted to appear before a special Board, composed entirely of white persons, and upon proof that while employed they have never been idle except through illness, they shall be recommended for pensions not to exceed the sum of $500.00 per person per year, nor to exceed $700.00 per family. Negroes shall, by definition, be persons with at least one sixteenth colored blood.”  
> – campaign platform, 1936: “The Fifteen Points of Victory for the Forgotten Man”

My best time with Loki? That's easy. Summer of '38, we had Saranson's yacht... – You remember Secretary Saranson? Or President Saranson, or Prisoner Whatever-His-Prison-Number is, I don't know what to call him anymore. Remember him? – ...We had his yacht, we'd anchored at Newport Harbor, in Virginia. That was one week, that we spent together after I'd finished some business in Washington. It was perfect, every detail, and every minute, and I'll remember it for the rest of my life.

Saranson's a homosexual, of course, I guess that's not news to anyone, anymore. He used to be really brazen about it too. You know the stories about how he used to corrupt all the new Mickey Mouses? All true. And he had a type he liked, not blond and blue-eyed, like those Master Race types are always talking about, but small, dark-haired, kind of fragile looking. Loki and I would go to his parties, and he'd have a full entourage of them, five or ten little troopers, and none of 'em looking a day over 21. The rumor was he'd take all of them to bed with him every night.

He liked us. He had kind of a coterie going in Washington back then, all these men, some of them really careful, and you couldn't tell anything, and others just the most flaming pansies you could ever find. He'd have these parties, and he'd invite all of them, and... Here's what he'd do, he'd invite Loki and me as a couple. You know, just in case he wasn't being blatant enough already?

One reason I was lucky I knew Loki: After the first coup, when he made himself President, everyone could see Saranson was heading for a fall. They started falling off in droves, like rats, leaving a sinking ship, but by then it was too late. There was too much connecting them to him, and Haik had no trouble rounding them up and arresting all of them. Loki was the reason I got out in time.

...I was going to tell you about the week we had together that summer: July, 1938, I had to be in Washington to demo a new plane I'd designed for the Air Corps. Loki was in town, finalizing the details on some deal or another, that his father had made with Obie, and he said he'd come with me, he said we could make a vacation of it.

That was one hell of a demo. I had Rhodey there to do the flying, of course. I always used him whenever I could, because he handled the planes better than anyone else. And of course you should have seen all the Corpo brass looking at him, and you should have heard the tut-tutting, whenever my back was turned. Nobody dared say anything to me, you understand, because they all wanted what I was selling, but I heard the talk all right. You couldn't help it.

There was never an ounce of talk about me and Loki though, and that was because of Saranson. You know, it does something to you, when you're untouchable like that. I was riding high back then, and I thought I could get away with anything. I remember we were checking into the hotel when we got to Washington: I said something to Loki about maybe I should get one room for both of us. “We can get away with it,” I said, or, knowing me, maybe it was, “ _I_ can get away with it.”

I'll never forget how Loki looked at me, when I said that. How his face turned absolutely white while I looked at him, and how that was when I remembered the stories he'd told me about Röhm, and the Night of the Long Knives. “Yes, why don't you do that, Anthony.” Loki's sense of humor never left him, but there was no humor in his voice then, nothing but deadly seriousness. “Why don't you buy a revolver and shoot us both in the head too, while you're at it. It'd be faster.”

We had two rooms on that trip, just like we always did. Just like every homosexual learns to do, because you have to, and not just in fascist countries. Because you have to blend in. And we took some girls along with us on the yacht too, I remember, couple gals named Jane and Darcy, they used to be research scientists, back before Windrip, and now they worked as clothing models. And Loki said he would barely tolerate bringing “the eggheads” along, because I needed someone to talk to, and he laughed in my face, because both of us knew we weren't going to do any more talking on that trip than was absolutely necessary.

God, I think back, and I can see the sun, setting across the water, at Newport Harbor, land just visible in the distance. Or other side of the deck, I remember us sitting there, looking out across the Atlantic, into the darkness. We'd have the girls with us, of course, we always did when we were in public. Servants used to put four chaise lounges in a row, and Loki and I would take the middle ones, and the girls would be on the outside. And after it got dark enough, I'd put out my hand and I'd take Loki's, or he'd put his out, and he'd take mine. Evenings, and the smell of the Flit we'd sprayed to keep the mosquitoes away, a bottle of some wine or another that Loki had made me buy, because he said I wouldn't know a good wine if it bit me. Champagne, that was it, and we'd toast each other with it, and then we'd drink.

We always kissed the girls good-night, just in case someone was looking. The story was, Jane was my date, and Darcy was Loki's, and we'd pair off, and we'd kiss 'em, nice, long, lingering kisses. And then they'd go to their bedroom, and Loki and I would go to mine. The bunk I had was so tiny, and you had to watch out when you sat up, or you'd crack your head on the one above it. I remember Loki stretched out there with his legs hanging over the side, while I... You don't want to hear this. No one wants the details about how two men make love. ...Let me put it this way, he would be stretched out, and I'd be... “Kissing him” doesn't bother you too much, does it? If I call it that? Funny, with everything that's happened to me, and what I think... what I'm scared has happened to Loki, and maybe it's still going on now, but it's funny how the thing I have trouble with is still being honest about what it was we did together. With all the hate in the world, and that was just love, but for some reason it seems so taboo.

I kissed him in places where men aren't supposed to kiss each other, let's put it that way. I did things to him most men have to pay a $40 whore for, and he did things to me that you won't find anywhere outside the vilest pornography. You'd think it was nothing but disgusting, if you read about it somewhere, but this wasn't disgusting, it was beautiful. And then we'd fall asleep in each others' arms, and then the next day we'd do the whole thing over again.

And sometimes we'd go into town, Jane on my arm, Darcy on Loki's. We'd go to dinner, to one of those little homestyle Southern restaurants, where we'd have crab cakes, or beaten biscuits and ham. Maybe we'd all just get ice cream cones, and we'd walk back to the pier together, eating them. Still with me and Loki in the middle, you understand, because that was how we did it. And the girls would be on our arms, Darcy would be chattering about nothing, which was her way, and I'd look at Loki, and he'd look at me. We'd smile, and there would be a light in those green eyes of his, that looked like love. I hope it wasn't, I really, really do. Because we might never see each other again, who knows with the world the way it is? Bad enough, having me pining for him.

God, don't I sound like a baby, though? Poor me, eh? Whole world on the brink of war, and I'm over here, crying about my poor lovelorn self? Never mind, it's not important. What we had, we had, and it was good, but nothing's ever permanent in this world.

Let me just finish up, here: Loki and I spent a week together on the yacht. After that... Well, after that, he was due back in Germany, but he wired his father he was going to need a couple more days, and we went to New York together, to take the girls home. I bought them each a summer fur, and we took them to Tiffany, let 'em each choose a little something. There was this case there, with these I.D. bracelets in it. Gold things, you know? Nominally for men, but everyone knows what kind of men wear those things? And nothing would do for Loki, but that he get one of those, and he had engraved with his name, and he made me get one and have 'em engrave mine on it. Then that night after we got 'em, we traded. He gave me his, and there were tears in his eyes, I remember. Probably the only time I ever saw Loki cry. “You're precious to me, Anthony,” he said.

I choked up, and I couldn't say anything, shoved the box with my bracelet in it at him, like a kid, giving his first Valentine to a girl. “Here, take this,” I said. – Real golden-tongued speaker, aren't I? – “You can throw it away, if you want to," I said. "I don't care what you do with it.” I found out later, he was wearing it when they arrested him. Some things you're better off not knowing.

Let me just finish the story, shall I? That was on that same trip, when Loki warned me off Saranson. We were on his yacht when it happened, it was the first night we spent there. We'd just had the grand tour of the whole place, galley, cabins, everything. Coming back up onto the deck, servants everywhere, a lot of the kind of black men you find down South, who have learned to be really obsequious, so they can stay safe. I was saying something about “my friend Lee,” or some such, and Loki looks at me, and he's perfectly serious, which was rare for him. “Saranson?” he said. “How much longer do you think he's going to last?”

And I looked at him real shocked, and I said, “What are you talking about?”

He gave one look around at the servants, just a really quick look, and then he smiled, and when he spoke again, his voice was perfectly artificial. “Me?” he said. “I mean nothing. Everyone knows what a joker I am.” And then after that, we finished our tour, and that was the end of it. But by the time Saranson went down in January, I'd been out of his circle long enough that I stayed safe.

 _Then_ , I stayed safe, you understand, for a little while longer. No one's ever safe forever, in a dictatorship.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Seňorita from Guadalupe,  
> Qui usted?  
> Seňorita go roll your hoop,  
> Or come to bed!  
> Seňorita from Guadalupe,  
> If Padre sees us, we're in the soup,  
> Hinky, dinky, habla oo?
> 
> Seňorita from Monterey,  
> Savvy Yank?  
> Seňorita what's that you say?  
> You're Swede? Ay tank!  
> But Seňorita from Monterey,  
> You won't hablār when we hit the hay,  
> Hinky, dinky, habla oo?
> 
> Seňorita from Mazatlán,  
> Once we've met,  
> You'll smile all over your khaki pan,  
> You won't forget!  
> For days, you'll holler, 'Oh, what a man!'  
> And you'll never marry a Mexican.  
> Hinky, dinky, habla oo?”  
> – Marching song for the planned war against Mexico, by Lee Saranson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Information you need for this chapter: In 1848, at the end of the Mexican War, the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ceding a lot of what is now the U.S. Southwest, from Mexico, to the United States. By the terms of the Treaty, Mexican nationals living in those territories got to choose whether they wanted Mexican or U.S. citizenship, and all their lands, titles, and language rights, were supposed to be preserved for them, just the same as they had been before the Treaty. This is a treaty America never honored. There are still people all over New Mexico, Arizona, California, and the rest of the Southwest, who can lay claim to land through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, but they have never been given any of it. For the purpose of this AU, I am saying that the Mexican government has promised that if they win in the war against the United States, they will give those people what is owed to them, and I am giving them a name: The Hijos de Guadalupe Hidalgo. Victor Mancha, mentioned in this chapter, is one of those people. In Marvel canon, he's the son of Ultron, and a woman named Marianella Mancha, and a member of the super-hero team the Runaways.

You know, frankly, I deserve what I got. How many people did I sit and watch while it happened to them first? The papers didn't cover it, you know how fascist papers are, but we all knew it was happening. Jews, black men, who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or someone said they'd been disrespectful to a white woman, or some such, and the Mexicans, and the Chinese, and the others, that I'd see disappearing all around me, but I still just sat on my hands. And I thought I was such a hero, because I'd save a few of them. Ben Grimm, Luke Cage, Wade Wilson... It was just my friends I was saving, what kind of hero is that?

First day after I arrived at the camp at Manzanar, you know who I saw? Fellow who'd worked for Killian, Sunfire, we used to call him, I don't remember why. And I flashed on the time that I'd been there, and seen Killian beating him, for some minor mistake or another. I knew then, if anyone deserved to be there, it was me, not him. I don't remember how many men like that helped me, while I was there. Black men, Japanese, homosexuals... All them the dregs of the Earth, by Corpo standards, and who are they replacing them with? Nothing but brutes, and cowards, like I used to be, until they forced me to take sides.

Fellow I'll never forget, name of Victor: Gypsy fellow, that's why he was there, but he had been a Minute Man, so they gave him some authority, had him supervising the rest of us prisoners. He took a liking to me for some reason, and he used to slip me food sometimes, and he intervened a couple times to change my work-duties. Sometimes I think, is there anyone like that where Loki is? ...Wherever he is? Hell, I'll probably never know, I shouldn't even think about it. You know the old saying, “That way lies madness”?

Never mind. Well it came out at the trial, that it was Obie who'd turned me in to the Corpos. I remember seeing him in the witness stand, watching the crocodile tears coming to his eyes, while he talked about how disappointed he'd been when he found out I was consorting with a “known antisocial,” by which he meant Loki. I remember all the sly little allusions he dropped about Saranson, which was ironic, considering it was him that introduced him to me. Later on, I got a chance to talk to him, right before they threw me into the paddy-wagon, to take me back to jail for the night. I asked him, “How could you do that to me, when I trusted you?”

I remember his eyes were perfectly cold. “It was business, Tony,” he said, “nothing but business.” And he patted my hand. – I wanted to slug him, but of course I was handcuffed, so I couldn't. – “Your father would have understood,” he said.

I don't know why I'm dwelling on this. Hell, it's in the past, it's not like I could do anything about it now. I got out of Manzanar, anyway, which is more than a lot of fellows did. And I was still healthy when I got out. I was a little thin, but no TB, no typhus, none of that.

I stayed with Rhodey, after I got out. He was still with Stark at the time, Obie had busted him down to janitor, but he hadn't fired him yet. He took me into his home, just this lousy little apartment, over by the railroad tracks, that he had to share it with five other people, but he made me welcome, made sure I got lots to eat, and all of that. And he asked me, “What are you going to do now?” And I told him.

I've thought a lot about it, since then. One advantage to being exiled, you have all this time to think. I don't regret what I did to Stark, not a bit. Those were my designs, and my machines, I didn't take out anything that didn't belong to me. Obie's money? I left all of that, I didn't touch one thing in the business wing of the building. I hope he's having a wonderful time, trying to keep Stark Air going, just with the money alone. Hope he's spreading it around right and left, buying men to come in and try to reverse-engineer whatever Stark-Planes the Army will loan him. Yeah, that part's really satisfying.

The other part though, I'm not so sure about. Where's a man's loyalty supposed to lie, after his country's rejected him? That I don't know. Am I an American anymore? Do I even want to be an American? All kinds of reasons to just give up and be a Mexican. Hell, I can live how I want down here, men like me are free to be whoever they want to be. Four bars, just in my neighborhood alone, I can go there any time, see men dancing together, kissing even, and no one ever bothers them. That could be me. But I don't know... Once an American, always an American, maybe that's it. Maybe I'm just trusting my friends in the Hijos to look out for me, once we win the war, and we take America back.

For now, though, I don't know what I am. Traitor? Freedom-fighter? It could really go either way. I'm the guy Secretary Cárdenas... – President, then, I mean in 1939, he was when I first met with him. – ...I'm the guy he went to, when he wanted to modernize the Army. “Air power,” I told him, “you need it just to survive, these days,” and I gave him designs that make the ones I gave the Corpos look sick. Does that make me a traitor? But what if America betrayed me first?

Here's my dream... And if it's silly and unrealistic, don't blame me. I'm an emigré, we're all silly and unrealistic, from the days the Hebrews sat by the waters of Babylon, and wept for lost Israel, up until now. But here it is, for what it's worth: I'm going to have a new airfield, soon. Found a nice piece of land, up in Sonora. Place that was devastated in the Revolution, so I can get it cheap. And I've got a friend in the Hijos, a kid named Victor Mancha. The land's going to be in his name, and he's putting up most of the money. But the designs will be mine. I've done the legal work, incorporated myself under a new name, Robert Downey. Planes Mexico flies after America finally declares war will be Downey-Planes, they'll have to buy them off of me, and I'll bank the money, use it to pay for a new life for myself, after the war.

And what I really want? Some day I'll find Loki. I want to find him I mean, because how the hell do we ever know what's going to happen in the future? But that's what I want, I want to find him, and get him back, and I'll bring him here. Got my eye on a little spread, near the land I was talking about, that we're buying for the airfield. Little piece of land, out near the Rio Cuchujaqui, used to belong to someone that worked for the Minas Nuevas. It's quiet out there at night, nothing but the rippling of the river, and the call of the mourning doves, as the sun goes down. Then later on, toward morning, you'll hear the coyotes, that lonely sound they make, that you can hear miles away. I want to take Loki there... I want to give him that, all that quiet, and the good smell of the earth, and growing things. I want to let him heal there... He'll need to heal, after whatever hell the Nazis have put him through. And then I'll bring him down here. I'll take him to El Caballero, on Avenida El Dorado, or Las Maňanitas maybe, over on Calle Quéretaro. And I'll get a mariachi band, have 'em serenade him, really tell him how I feel in style.

We can marry down here, you know. Might not be a real marriage, but it's as good as, everyone will treat it like it's real. Me and Loki, married for good, how beautiful would that be? ...But, you know, it's one thing at a time, isn't it? First I find him, then I bring him here. ...I do whatever it takes, so I can bring him here. And as for the rest of it? I can cross that bridge later.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As far as I can tell from what I have read, it is historically true, that gay men were free to live as themselves in Mexico, during the 1930's. Per wikipedia:
> 
> _"Thus, in the late 19th century a homosexual subculture had already formed in Mexico City, similar to that existing in other large American cities such as Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Havana, New York City, and Toronto. The work of historians like Victor M . Macías-González, Pablo Picatto, and Robert Buffington, among others, has identified areas such as gay bathhouses, prisons, and some squares and avenues of the capital. The work of criminologist Roumagnac, for example, gives details of homosexual practices in the country's prisons..._
> 
> _In the 1930s there already existed some bars and baths for homosexuals in Mexico City, in the areas around Alameda, Zócalo, Paseo de Reforma and Calle Madero. In the next decade, during World War II, the city had ten to fifteen bars, and dancing was permitted in El África and El Triumfo."_  
>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_history_in_Mexico#Independent_Mexico


	6. Six Years Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And when I get ready to retire I'm going to build me an up-to-date bungalow in some lovely resort, not in Como or any of the other proverbial Grecian islands you may be sure, but in somewheres like Florida, California, Santa Fe, & etc., and devote myself just to reading the classics, like Longfellow, James Whitcomb Riley, Lord Macaulay, Henry Van Dyke, Elbert Hubbard, Plato, Hiawatha & etc. Some of my friends laugh at me or it, but I have always cultivated a taste for the finest in literature. I got it from my mother as I did everything that some people have been so good as to admire in me.”  
> – _Zero Hour_ , Berzelius Windrip

We were beginning to think America wasn't going to invade, when it finally happened. Whole thing was Saranson's idea, you'll remember. Haik was smarter, he remembered other times they'd gone down to Mexico, and how that had turned out. Only then Germany declared war and they had to.  It's a strange country... No judgment intended, you understand, and lord knows, I grew to love the place while I was down there, but by American standards, it's... different, shall we say?

Here in the States we're so used to being able to build pretty well whatever we need, or we used to be... First big lesson I learned when I was in Mexico? I remember meeting with President Cárdenas. Summer of '39, that was, and I'd just arrived South of the Border. Thought I was getting my life together again, I remember going up to Alamos and looking around, seeing what I could build there, out of what the Richardsons and the Minas Nuevas had left behind. If you don't know Cárdenas? He's a real forward-thinker. I remember he talked to me about all the plans he had, and I was an American, and I believed every one.

What's different down there, is the money. It was always just oil and tourism in Mexico, and America, the main customer for both. Then after the war started of course, there went all that revenue. There I was with my brand-new airfield, all the gas I needed to run however many planes, but as for getting what I needed to build the planes? I think I turned out five, maybe ten. After that, it was patching together whatever biplanes and Great War rejects we could find, and then later on after Germany came in on America's side, I couldn't even do that.

And I wanted to fight, but they wouldn't let me. Reality of going to war down there: And it was unpalatable as hell to me when I found out, you had better believe it. I thought I was a hero, I'd been one in the Great War, you know. What I really was though? I was a flyer. Wars down there are still won by the same guerrilla tactics that Zapata used in the 20's, and Juarez used fifty years before that. I offered my services. Kid that turned me down... – He's General Villa. I hear he wants a career in politics, after they kick the Americans out, which is going to happen, it's just a matter of time. – ...Kid laughed in my face, I remember. And the others were nicer about it, because, you know, I was still the guy that was giving them whatever Air Corps they had, but yeah, it was still the same message: “You want to fight, gringo? No thank you, you can stay at home and fix planes.”

So, I fixed planes. Fixed 'em in Mexico City, fixed 'em in Ecatepec, and Guadalajara, and Puebla. Everyplace there was a plane, I think I went there and fixed it at some point or another, all these old biplanes, and beat-up crop-dusters, and luxury planes that the Army had claimed after the war started. I did whatever I could, as I came to realize more and more, that it wasn't my services that were going to win the thing, it was scrawny kids like Villa, riding horses, and shooting Grandpa's rifles, and waiting out the Corpos, in their hideouts, in the desert, or somewhere up in the mountains, where American tanks couldn't manage the dirt roads.

I managed a year or so, before it started to get to me. Something about relying on other people like that, it gets to you, doesn't it? A man doesn't like to live that way, not a real man, anyway. Men my age were fighting the Corpos, but what was I doing? Hiding in my comfy ranch house north of Alamos, listening to reports about this battle, or that battle, that the Villistas had just won, and comforting myself with the knowledge that somebody still had to be using my planes somewhere.

The arrest? Depressing story. You know there's still a part of me that wants to believe I can pretend it didn't happen if I just don't talk about it? Some part of me that wants to deny reality, like I can close my eyes, and I'll be back on my ranch. – And Loki will be there, but he's never been there, and at this rate maybe I'll never get to take him there. – But I've heard all your stories now, I know. I guess it's my turn, isn't it?

God, I'm sick of being here! Sorry, I know, I should be grateful. I'm sorry, it's just... The winters here, and the way you start feeling them come around Labor Day... And how they don't really end until it's the middle of July, how do you stand it? Wilson, I know, it's even worse where you grew up, isn't it? This probably feels like a beautiful fall day to you, doesn't it? You too, huh, Carol? Weren't you saying you were from out East somewhere? I'm sorry, it's only October, it's not supposed to be like this. Weather was sunny and warm at my ranch until almost Thanksgiving, I had four goddamn years there to get used to it, barring the times I was somewhere else fixing planes anyway, and regardless, it was still Mexico, it's always warm down there.

You know, I remember when shortages were all we worried about, back in '39 and around then? And those weren't even real shortages. We had plenty of milk, dried, anyway, and you could still get bread, and chicken. – All kinds of things we only dream about now, but back then, we took 'em for granted. And even when you couldn't get 'em? You know I dream about frijoles and tortillas now, just like I used to dream about getting my hands on a decent beefsteak, or a cup of American coffee? And chiles... Gringo like me, and I go to sleep and dream of jalapeños and chiles poblanos...

Never mind. Only brought the food thing up in the first place, because I was getting at something else. We're fine here, in terms of food, we get enough, anyway ...most of the time. Point I was making though, I used to miss California, and now I miss Mexico. Or both of them maybe, sometimes it's hard figuring out which one is home for me anymore. I lived down there almost four years, and it changed me, more than I knew then. I go on Sons of L. runs sometimes, it feels more like another way of helping the Villistas, than it does fighting for my real country, where I was born.

I'm doing it again, I'm whining. And I haven't even started telling you about the arrest yet. Not that there's much to tell. Obie was gunning for me, after what I did to him when I left Stark Air. Hammer too, he'd had a chip on his shoulder ever since we used to be competing for the same Corpo air-contracts. I never used to be very polite about him. We'll leave aside whether that was warranted or not, it's all water under the bridge now. At any rate though, you know he signed on with Stark after I left, and then they infected the whole Air Corp. By the time the first Corpos made it to Alamos, I had half the American Army gunning for me.

They got there on my tracks, that I'd laid, some of 'em with my own hands. That was back when I was still working with Victor Mancha, we had a grant from Cárdenas, and we had to use almost of half of it on the railroad, but of course we needed trains to bring us our supplies. We just fixed all the places that got damaged in the Revolution. We knew we'd be sitting ducks if the Americans ever got there, but remember, back then we were still hoping that our planes would be what kept that from happening.

You know how the Corpos fight. Blitzkrieg tactics, just like they learned from Hitler's boys. You saw that in Ontario, didn't you, Wilson? Works against conventional enemies, but this was Mexico. Mexican tactic is that you wait out the scorched earth policy, you _survive_ the scorched earth, and then you build again. Along the way though, yeah, there'll be some losses. I was one of the losses.

Gringo out on a remote ranch in Sonora: They can afford to lose a few gringos down there, along with whatever other fatcats fall by the wayside. There were fellows I could have called on for help, but I didn't. Knew they were fighting for their lives, and I wasn't going to get in their way.

I remember Obie made 'em bring me back to California. Plan was, they were going to put me in a camp in what used to be New Mexico... – I'm sorry, I never lived here long enough to learn all the new Corpo names for everything, wasn't here for long enough while they were in charge, anyway. – ...Place near Las Cruces, worse even than Manzanar probably, or it would have been for someone who hadn't made an enemy out of the Commissioner of the Mountain/Pacific Province, which is what Obie was by then. And he must have told 'em don't be gentle, so long as they got me there alive. I remember spending six days in a cattle car, chained, hand and foot. – These hardship stories are so tiresome, aren't they? But I told you I'd tell about what happened.

Six days, in an open car, north out of Sonora, and up through the Arizona desert, like he'd also told 'em to take the worst route they could find. Water a now-and-then thing, and don't even ask for a roof over your head. I still had my shirt for the first four days, but after that there was this woman with a kid... Little Mexican brat, like the ones I threw centavos at, back in Alamos. His crime was throwing rocks, or some such, but you know the Corpos, they have to make an example of everybody. I did Barstow up to Sacramento, uncovered. I remember going in front of Obie, and I could hardly stand, I was so dehydrated by then. And then the first thing he did was give me some ice water, and he laughed like hell when I threw it all up, as soon as I'd drank it.

You get so defeated, when things like that are happening to you, but I'm not going to talk about that. I'm sorry, you want to hear a lot of stories about people begging and perjuring themselves? Go find another guy, who wants to tell 'em to you. I'm pretty much done, at this point.

I've told you all the main parts now, anyway. Did a year in Manzanar, hard labor, you know the drill. Sons of L. managed to bust me out sometime late in '45. Then they got me up here... You really want to hear how that went? No you don't, half the guys that helped me on that run are dead by now, and I think the other half are in jail somewhere. You know what turnover's like for the Sons of L. Anyway, I still can't believe how much of Canada is Corpo now, but we've got Alaska back at any rate, and Stalin's starting to get us some supplies through there, which helps.

And there's a story... But I don't know if I believe it... Have I told you about Loki yet? – Don't know if it's good news, what I heard, either, but I'm not going to worry about until I have to. – What time is it? 4:30? Another long, boring evening ahead of us, unless we can get Klondike Radio and hear the news. Any of the rest of you have a story you want to tell?

Aww, what the hell, I guess I'll tell you about Loki.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “America has a brilliant beginning begun. No one congratulates President Windrip with greater sincerity than we Germans. The tendency points as goal to the founding of a Folkish state. Unfortunately is the President not yet prepared with the liberal tradition to break. He holds still ever a two-meaning attitude the Jews visavis. We can but presume that logically this attitude change must as the movement forced is the complete consequences of its philosophy to draw. Ahsaver the Wandering Jew will always the enemy of a free self-conscious people be, and America will also learn that one even so much with Jewry compromise can as with the Bubonic plague.”  
> – Translation from an article published in _Der Völkischer Beobachter_ , in 1938

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This bit of the story took me forever, because I wanted to get in a fairish amount of what's been happening in Europe, while Tony has been having his adventures, and that wasn't easy, because is of course much more concerned with what's happening in his own life. Finally I accepted the fact that I'm just going to need to add some notes in here. Tony gets to tell what matters to him, here is the rest of the context you might need for this next part of the story:
> 
> Without the US to help them, Britain falls to Germany, after a couple of years of Blitzkrieg. Russia, of course, holds out, and is still fighting Hitler in 1943, when this part of the story is happening. Franco is solidly in control in Spain, but the fascist governments in France and Italy have fallen. Germany is fighting a three-front war, trying to defeat Stalin, and stop the rebellions in France and Italy, at the same time. India and China are fighting Japan, a big part of Africa is fighting German control, and in the New World, Mexico, Cuba, and part of Canada remain free, along with most of the Central and South American countries.
> 
> Is that clear? Or did I just muddy things up worse for you? Hoping for the latter, here comes the story, which literally took me three weeks of false starts to even get it up to acceptable level.

I'm scared, Bruce. I couldn't tell them, but I am, I'm really scared...

Dammit, Bruce, I shouldn't go. What the hell right do I have? What right does any man have, thinking about his own happiness, in the middle of a conflagration? Whole world's going to hell... What kind of world are we leaving our children, Bruce? What kind of world do we want for them, a fascist world? And I'm really going to go running off on some wild-goose chase? I'm doing good work here, I'm fighting Corpos, I should stay.

Christ, I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm selfish, that's what it is. Whole world still revolves around me, as far as I'm concerned, as long as Tony Stark is happy, as long as _he_ has what _he_ wants...

You know what I'm scared about, Bruce? I don't like to say it, it makes me ashamed. But you're a good man, you don't judge, like a lot of fellows do. What scares me, Bruce?

I'm going to get there, and Loki's going to be dead. That's what I'm worried about, I'm walking away from the best work I've ever done... most important, anyway. Helping the Sons of Liberty stop Stark Air. Used to be my company, but you know what? That wasn't good work, that was selfish work. Because who did I sell the planes to? Corpos. And who did I work with? Nazis. This is the first time I've ever been on the side of the angels, in my whole life, and I'm still going to walk away from that? Serve me right if he is... If he...

Never mind, you know what I'm saying. At any rate, what right to I have to be scared, just because my selfish little enterprise might end in failure. If I had a shred of character, I'd stay here and I'd keep helping the Sons of L, like I should, but instead I'm going, and...

I'm leaving tonight, Bruce. You remember what I told the others? It's all true. Loki's brother was in Detroit, he was at the Ford Plant, same time I was there, when I was gathering intel about the planes they're building there. Thor came after me, after I left, he caught up with me, and told me he's seen his brother. Loki got out of prison, some kind of deal probably, and I don't care what kind of deal it was. I don't care if he gave sex to every man in Hitler's private guard, if that's what it took to get him out of whatever hellish Nazi camp they were keeping him in. I don't care if he went on his knees in front of Der Fuhrer himself. If that's what it took to save his life? _He did the right thing_.

...Anyway, he got out, that's the upshot of it. Thor said he saw him with a Colonel Von Strucker, he's working for him, supposedly. And there's some talk going around apparently, about Von Strucker, that he's in one of the anti-Hitler factions, he's a Hydraist, or I'm not sure what he is. Thor said he was involved in an assassination plot, and he almost got caught, and next time he probably won't be so lucky. He told me... This was Thor, Loki's brother, he said, “Can you help me, Stark, can you help get my brother out? Because I can't, because I don't have enough influence.”

And I said yes, even though I shouldn't have, even though I knew I belonged here. And I am going, I found a guy, his name's Rogers...

Dammit, Bruce, tell me I shouldn't go. I trust you, you're an honest man, and you see things clearly. You're not blinded by your own emotions, like, apparently, I am. _You_ tell me, you _say_ , “Stark, your work is here, you need to stay here,” and I'll stay, just like that. I know I'm doing the wrong thing, but it's like I can't help myself, the thought of what Loki's been through, and what might still happen to him, if his friend Von Strucker goes down...

I know, Bruce. My choice, I shouldn't push it off on you. My selfish choice, because I am going, it's like I can't help myself. And I've got this guy Rogers, he was AEF, and then he went back to help the Republicans in Spain, and he was with De Gaulle and Italia Liberata after that. He's been with all the right people, all the anti-fascists, all over Europe. He has a team he fights with, call themselves the Howling Commandos, it's some Americans, some Europeans, most of the English soldiers that got out after Germany beat them, as far as I can tell. Right kind of people, anti-fascists, brave. They're fighting for what's right, not making selfish decisions, just for their own happiness.

...I was saying, I'm scared, Bruce. I'm going to go in there, Rogers is going to take me... He knows Germany, Bruce. You know what? He knows the Hydraists. He fought one of them, a guy named Schmidt, when he was with De Gaulle. He said he's been keeping an eye on Schmidt ever since then, says if we think Hitler's bad, wait until he takes over. ...But I was saying. Bruce, I'm scared. I don't worry that I'm going to get there, because I will, Rogers knows his stuff. What I'm worried about is what I'm going to find when I do get there. Either Rogers is going to be wrong about the Hydraists, we're going to get there, Hitler will have stopped them, you know what happens to men who go against Der Fuhrer. Either that or it'll be just Loki, he'll be back in prison, or even worse, he'll be...

You know how many men I've seen die, Bruce? I'm not being dramatic, I know it's the same for all of us. Occupational hazard, right? You fight against evil, evil's strong, a lot of good men get killed. I've lost Rhodey, who was my best friend back in Palo Alto, and Victor Mancha, who's the fellow I worked with down in Alamos. I've lost a lot of guys, just like we all have, but... It's like I can think about that, understand, Bruce? What I can't think about? What my mind won't let me think about? I can't even say it, can't say that Loki might be...

Never mind, I've taken up enough of your time. Sons of Liberty are going to be all right, Bruce. Scott Lang's taking over. He's better than me, did you know he used to be a burglar? I'm the one that gave him his second chance, back when I was still with Stark. He'll do great, better than me. Who better than a sneak thief, to sneak in and out of places, right? And I gave him all my notebooks, the work'll go on, whether I make it back here or not.

Maybe I won't, maybe I'll just take Loki and go down to Mexico, after I get him. ...Only no, no I won't. I do have got some conscience left, Bruce. I'll just come back here, I'll do my job, Loki can go... Well, wherever he goes, if I can get him out of there alive, that's all that matters. I'll have that, at least. He can go or stay with me, it's all right either way.

Thanks for listening, Bruce, really. I've been needing to talk to someone about this for a while, ever since I... ...Bruce... Bruce? WAKE UP, BRUCE!

...Yeah, I know, I know you just got back. ...Thirty hours without sleep? Really? I understand, lord knows, I don't hold it against you. You don't want to hear what Steve said about the Hydraists? He said something about a bomb...

...I understand. Another time, sure, yeah, that's all right. If there is another time. If I... You know, if I don't get killed over there?

Never mind, I won't. I'm like the bad penny, I'll always turn up. Couple of months from now, I'll be back here, things'll be just like they were before. Except... if I'm lucky, Loki will be with me... Jesus god, just wish me luck, okay, Bruce? And then I'll leave you alone, and you can get some sleep.

 


	8. From the Diary of Loki Von Borsen #1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don't ever laugh as a Hearse goes by,  
> For you may be the next to die.  
> They wrap you up in a big white sheet,  
> From your head down to your feet.  
> They put you in a big black box,  
> And cover you up with dirt and rocks,  
> And all goes well for about a week,  
> And then your coffin begins to leak.  
> And the worms crawl in,  
> The worms crawl out,  
> The worms play pinochle on your snout.  
> They eat your eyes,  
> They eat your nose,  
> They eat the jelly between your toes.”  
> \-- This is from the Harley Poe version of “The Hearse Song,” because the original folk-sing lyrics weren't available online.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse any/all mistakes I have made with the German here. -- Although any readers who know German, and would like to help me fix them, are welcomed, believe me! -- It is, of course, pure Google Translate, and used only because Loki seems like the kind who would go all multi-lingual, in his journal.

Another party last night. Same tiresome crew, all of them pretending to understand while Zola and W. H. read papers, and then cooing over a lot of schematics that meant nothing to them. Wolfi was at his best with them, he was the perfect host. Thank god, it meant he was too done-in to perform with me afterward. It should always be so. The man is pathetic, that bald head, and his member, like a little wurst, peering so meekly from between his thighs. “Tonight, kleiner Loki? – Now?” How one wants to vomit.

There was much drinking, of course. There always is. Repulsive men, trying to deny their own guilt, trying to pretend that all the shame is someone else's, and none of it theirs. “The factory? I saw nothing at the factory.” – W. Von B. said that to me last night, and this, the factory at Mittelwerk, that everyone knows is staffed by prisoners from Mittelbau-Dora. – “I care only about the V-2's,” he said, and I nodded, and murmured, “But of course.” This is how we all play the game. Are any left anymore who are innocent? Not here, probably not anywhere, but we are alive, and for that I suppose one must thank whatever sort of god it is that watches this world of ours.

A joke. But who cares? Saw T. again the other day. So-generous Wolfi gives us time together, wearing that pathetic look on his face of course, as usual. “Like me, bitte, meine kleiner Loki, like me...” How does one keep one's gorge from rising? But I digress. ...I saw T, he was at Augustiner Keller, where he goes, without a trace of irony, god help him. But it is not like he's the only one, Wolfi, and Schmidt, and all that ilk will insist on treating the place as if it has value. The smell, should I discourse upon the smell? Beer, dating back, one thinks, to the the time of Bismarck, a stench that rivals... I am a connoisseur of smells, thank you, meine lieber Adolf. This one rivals any I have smelled in all my chequered past, and yet everyone still goes there. Because they're desperate, one presumes, because how is one to get through life sober, in this Year of Grace, 1943?

A digression. Subject, encryption: Wolfi and his friends have bought an Enigma machine. It is quite an entertaining device, I used to know someone who would have enjoyed looking at it. ~~He would probably have taken it apart, and then built another one that improved upon it one hundredfold. He is also most probably dead, and deserves to be so; he was an idealist, and there is no place in this world for such.~~ All the Hydraists are quite chuffed with their new toy, and they can't stop playing with it. They can't seem to leave off setting and re-setting the wirings, and then of course writing down all the new ones, and passing them to each other. Boys and their toys, n'est-ce pas? My own encryption is simple: Lie often enough, and no one knows when you are telling the truth. And a bit of opportune scatology helps as well. Thus the following:

Here is what it was like, the first time I was with Wolfi. He purchased me, you understand. I was still living chez the very kind graces of meine lieber Adolf at the time, in one of those so-wonderful Hotels he so generously provides for all of us antisocials. Wolfi purchased me from a kapo who had won me by force of arms. He gave... I think it was ten reichsmarks for me, perhaps it was twenty. He represented himself as being an invert, but I do not think he is anything, really. What he lusts for, meine kleiner Wolfi, is power, and this he thinks I can give him, for some reason I still do not understand why. Lord knows by now everyone should know, Father has cut me loose. He could watch me die, I think, and feel nothing, and then go to his usual heavy midday dinner of wurst und knödeln with the same hearty appetite as always. What do I care? The man is a dunce (and T. is the same, likewise).

This was another digression. I will return to the coupling. Foolish Wolfi, who pretended to want me desperately, even stinking as I did then, of typhus and other men's shit. And he took me in, and fed me, and cooed over me. (Why he didn't just send a telegram straightaway to T. and Father, I'll never know. Perhaps he was afraid they'd blame him for my condition?) And I laughed, and told him over and over again, that I knew him for a liar. And then finally... – Delicious scene, truly. – He is not fat, but flabby. His stomach, like a pile of potatoes, the whole scene like a plate of Nürnburger Rostbratwurst such as one would be served in a beer hall in Franconia. There was his tiny wurst, peeking from beneath a white mound like potatoes, the Schamhaar so pale and stringy, just like sauerkraut. Imagine having a thing like that inside you. Imagine the effort it must take to get it inside of... well, anywhere, really. Poor Wolfi should have saved his little wurst, but there he was, offering it to me as a gift.

Once, we did it like that. After that, I told him no more. Now he kneels before me (but still with the little wurst, peeking out from under the potatoes). He takes the Von Borsen Geschenk in his mouth, generous gift from the Von Borsen Sohn (Ha Ha). He is meek, so meek, like a little mouse. How I wish Schmidt and Zola and the others could see him like that. And the whip-marks on his back, and how he begs for them. He wore a dress for me once. A pretty little maid's uniform. I shall be quite sad when meine lieber Adolf twigs to what he and his friends are doing and puts an end to all of them.

Encryption, you see? Quite effective. Who but an invert would wade through all that, and of course there are no inverts here in meine lieber Adolf's Reich, are there? I will recommend the strategy to Wolfi perhaps (after I have found another for myself), but for now he and his friends are so pitiably happy with their new machine.

Now with my digression out of the way: I was saying, I saw T. He was as he always is, a great, lumbering fool. “Oh, Loki, oh, my Loki, meine kleiner Bruder,” etcetera. Big red hands like paws, taking my hands, big, smacking, beery kisses. You can imagine how Wolfi and the others were watching of course, and what they were making of it all. Every Von Borsen attention brings them one step closer to their Hydraist victory, or so it seems in their minds. How they gloated, with what glee did they all rub their fat hands together.

T. was worried. He is a fool, but not so stupid that he cannot see how meine lieber Adolf will crush the Hydraists as soon as they grow too troublesome. I quite pitied him for the pathetic lines on his poor face. He worries that dear Wolfi will bring me to grief along with himself. Poor T. has lived comfortably, and does not know there are many things that are worse than death. He thinks of the gallows, or all those noxious gasses that lieber Adolf's men are using now, with such abandon. I think of... But what am I writing of such things here for? They are in my mind, and that is enough. How I would welcome the quick mercy of the hangman, or even the foulest gasses, quickly administered, compared to some of what I have seen.

Uggh, tiresome T. Here he gets into these pages, and suddenly all is tragedy. Where is the fun? Life is a game, a farce. It is opera buffa, not opera seria. How is it that the song goes, that ~~Stark~~ someone taught me once? “The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle on your snout.” That's all any of us are, is food for worms, and so why not enjoy ourselves?

How I hope someone does read this. Shall I write details of kleiner Wolfi's little plan? Would you like to hear about W. H. and his little club? About all the so-pretty schematics they have been showing us, when meine lieber Fuhrer's men aren't around? You can _break_ atoms, did you know that? Apparently this does... I am not entirely sure what. Causes a big boom, I believe that is the gist of it. Meine lieber Fuhrer wants to drop these sorts of toys on all sorts of tiresome people in France and Italy, who seem to have the childish notion that they might do better at running their own countries than do the so-helpful Germans. Wolfi, for his part, wants to drop one on Adolf. He thinks W. H. and W. Von B. and the rest of them will go along with this. Will they? Oh, one is quite on the edge of one's seat.

~~Everyone who matters is dead anyway, and so what does any of it matter? There is only T., with his great-big paws, and his doggish concern, and Wolfi, with his little wurst, and all his Hydraist friends. I hope W. Von B. makes a bomb so big it destroys everyone, and the whole world burns, and all of us who are in it, and everything else too. I'd quite like that, I think: One good explosion, and then everything is gone, no more pretense – No more life, for that matter. – and no more thoughts... no more memories.~~

 


	9. From the Diary of Anthony Stark, Esq. #1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Some time ago when Uncle Sammy had a war with Spain,  
> And many of the boys in blue were in the battle slain,  
> Not all were killed by bullets, though, not by any means,  
> The biggest part that died were killed by Armour's Pork and Beans. 
> 
> (CHORUS)  
> I was stung right, stung right, S-T-U-N-G,  
> Stung right, stung right, easy mark, that's me;  
> But when my term is over, and again I'm free,  
> There'll be no more trips around the world for me. ”  
> \-- Joe Hill, “Stung Right”

Home by Thanksgiving, that's what I figure. Gonna take L*** home, gonna give him a nice Thanksgiving dinner, probably be the first good meal he's had in who-knows-how-long. Nobody has any food over here, anymore. And we'll have turkey, with some of that good cornbread stuffing, like Hop Sing used to make, and we'll have mashed potatoes with giblet gravy, and some cranberries... Does anybody really like cranberries? ...And pie, we'll definitely have pie. Two or three kinds of pie, like how Hop Sing did it, when I was a kid: sour-cream-and-raisin, and pumpkin, and apple, and maybe a chocolate-cream pie as well. Who doesn't like pie?

“Ersatz everything,” that's what L*** said to me that one time, but these days they don't even have ersatz over here, anymore. Potatoes and cabbages, that's what they've got, that's all any of them have. And everything's rationed, and we'll stay someplace, and you don't like to even eat, because they've all got kids. Little tiny rations, only go so far, and it always feels like you're taking the food right out of the little kids' mouths.

Usually it's like a dozen kids, or so, seems like they've always got these large families. And always a big brother who's gone. Or maybe two or three of them are gone, they're fighting in Italy, or they're in France, or in Russia, maybe. Conscription age is 16, but you talk to people, they say nobody looks too close, and they've taken them as young as 12. And every soldier, that means more money for the family of course, and what with the inflation over here...

Newspaper stories: I don't remember when I would have read them, some time in the 20's, it had to have been. I never read newspapers much, but this was big, everyone had heard about it. German mark kept going down and down, and people were picking up their pay in wheelbarrows, and then they still weren't even able to buy a loaf of bread with it. And I remember people saying that's why Hitler got in, is because it was like that. Like that again here, now, and I know who's going to replace Hitler. Can't write about that here, though, because if I get caught, then somebody's going to read this. No details, no specifics, got to be careful.

But I do know who's going to replace him, or who wants to, anyway. R***** told me the whole story before we left, including why we have to stop him too. New guy, no better than the old guy, like when Haik and Saranson took over from Windrip. He told me other things too, which you'd probably love for me to write down here, wouldn't you, Adolf Schickelgruber, because that way you and your goons won't have to do any work, and you'll have the whole story. But you're not going to get the whole story, not even if you do catch us. I've been captured before, and so has R*****. And S** W***** grew up black in America, he knows all anyone could know, about dealing with bullies.

...Thanksgiving dinner, anyway, like I was saying. Because who knows when was the last time L*** will have had a decent dinner? Take him to a farm somewhere, someplace where you don't have to care if there's rationing, because they make all their own food there. Someplace like that nice lady, south of Traverse City, place where I stayed that last time I went to Detroit, when I met L***'s brother there. She killed me a chicken, I remember it like it was yesterday, and she cooked it with dumplings, you know how ladies do. Tender meat, and the dumplings had parsley in them, and there was all this gravy. That was in in the summertime too, and she had this garden: Fat, juicy, beefsteak tomatoes, and little cucumbers, no bigger than your finger, and the first apples of the season, and she made me this pie. God, just to think about that pie. And there was ice cream to go with it, she said to me, “Why don't you make yourself useful, you go out back and crank this freezer, while I get supper ready.” They always call it supper, in the Midwest. Sunshine, and a cool breeze, on a back porch in Michigan, and you could hear the chickens clucking, hear the cow mooing, that gave the milk for the ice cream. I want something just like that for L***, someplace where he can really start to feel human again. Or... Hell, I just want someplace where we can be together again, that's all.

Never mind. Thanksgiving, just going to think about Thanksgiving. Hop Sing worked in the kitchen at the Pasadena house. There was a law there, I found out later, supposedly Chinese couldn't live anywhere in Pasadena (not unless they were servants, anyway). Why do we do that? Why are people like that? Over here, it's Jews, but back at home... Was what we used to do to the Negroes, and the Chinese, and the Japanese too, and the Mexicans... Was that any better? Guys like Rhodey, and S** W*****, and Hop Sing, how are they any different from me, no matter what color they are? But we'll do things like that, we'll make rules: Over there, it was that they couldn't live some places, or they couldn't have this job, or that job. Or Negroes, I remember, they weren't allowed to stay in any hotels, no matter where you went. I remember traveling with Rhodey, and that always made it really difficult for us. ...But no, it is different. It's even worse, over here, it's worse than you could ever imagine.

They really do do those things, just like the rumors say. Always thought it was Yellow Journalism, even after the time we had that guy stay with us in Winnipeg, and he told us all those stories. You don't want to think people would lie about that, but hell, didn't they have actual real-live Belgian nuns, and all of them had personally seen the Kaiser's men skewering live babies on their bayonets? But this is real, all of it, every single word. And I saw one of the camps, or I smelled it, anyway. Place in what used to be France, a town we went by on the way to Strasbourg. God, that smell... Nobody who served in the Great War could ever forget that smell, not to mention if you were ever in a camp, anywhere. And there's the way they treat Jews over here. I thought it was bad, how we treated Negroes back in America, but I never saw anyone, not even a Corpo, who shot a black man in cold blood, just for bumping into him on the street.

Sometimes I think, why are we even over here? There's just three of us. How the hell are we going to do what we came here to do, anyway? And even if we do, what the hell good is it going to do anyway? And maybe we should be helping the guy we're supposedly going to stop. After all, he wants to kill Hitler, doesn't he? How is that a bad thing? You know what they say, the enemy of your enemy, isn't he a friend?

Why nobody's ever paid me to think, I guess. Give me a plane to work on, or a schematic, and a pile of materials, let me be the guy in charge of building things, and let somebody else decide how they're going to be used. R***** has a plan. It's a good plan. I'm just going to stick to his plan, and not ask any questions.

Know what I want right now? Trench Rations. Like the ones we used to get when we were in combat. And of course we would always complain, and there was this song we used to sing, Wobbly song, if you could believe it. Don't remember what it was called, but there was this line in there, something about how not very many men were getting killed by bullets, it was mostly from eating the canned food. I sure could use some of that canned food right now. Big can of bully-beef, you think I'd turn my nose up at that? Or some Armour pork and beans, and a big stack of hardtack to go with it.

We flyers, they used to say that we always got the good stuff, but it wasn't always like that, believe me. You'd get stuck, maybe you had to crash-land somewhere, what the hell else was there to eat, but whatever you had along? Trench rations, and you'd make a little fire, heat your can of bully-beef or whatever else you had, over it, and you'd make your coffee, just like any old hobo, in a freight-yard, anywhere in the U.S.A.

Yeah, after that, we'd go back to base, and the food there: Well, it wasn't anything to write home about maybe, but it wasn't just potatoes and cabbage anyway. R.A.F. fellows used to always complain that we Americans were over-fed, I remember that. Rations were 12 ounces of bacon, and they used to say, “All that? You get all that, just for one of you?” And they said we were spoiled babies, and they used to laugh at us sometimes, but it was all in good fun.

Know what I remember? Christmas, 1917: Base-camp meal, because we were all grounded, too much rain over the Channel, for any of us to risk it. R.A.F. fellows had a plum pudding, made out of who-knows-what. Hardtack and carrots, probably, but it tasted good, anyway. And someone had requisitioned a chicken from somewhere, probably out of some poor schmoe's chicken coop, but you know, we weren't above that kind of thing. And plenty of grog, and just enough lemons that we could call it a punch. You don't need much, do you? Just good hearts and a healthy appetite, and anything you have can be a feast.

I don't know what good I'm doing, if I save L***, and everything else stays the same. And even if we do get You-Know-Who, but Hitler's still in charge... ~~Got half a mind to leave R*****, once we get to Berlin, and I'll join up with You-Know-Who, at least until he takes down Hitler. And after that? Who knows...~~

Stick to what you're good at, Stark, and don't poke your damn nose into anything else. Objective: Get L*** back, and then stop a bad guy. Because Y-K-W is bad, and you really think he'd be any easier on the Jews? And we can't let him have ...what they're working on either, he'd be just as bad with it as Schickelgruber. I'm the guy that navigates, and S** W***** is the guy that flies us in and out, and R**** is the one who knows the country, and he knows Y-K-W, and he decides what we do, and when we do it. We're going to do this, or we'll die trying, and I'm not going to let any second thoughts get in my way.


	10. From the Diary of Loki Von Borsen #2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Orders came for sailing,  
> Somewhere over there.  
> All confined to barracks,  
> 'Twas more than I could bear.  
> I knew you were waiting in the street,  
> I heard your feet,  
> But could not meet  
> My Lili of the lamplight,  
> My own Lili Marlene.
> 
> Resting in our billet,  
> Just behind the line,  
> Even though we're parted,  
> Your lips are close to mine.  
> You wait where that lantern softly gleamed,  
> Your sweet face seems  
> To haunt my dreams,  
> My Lili of the lamplight,  
> My own Lili Marlene  
> My Lili of the lamplight  
> My own Lili Marlene.”  
> \-- “Lili Marlene,” Vera Lynn

I have been unfaithful to you, darling Wolfi. But one would have to be, wouldn't one? Imagine a life sentenced to only that one little wurst of yours. Imagine that thing, and only that thing, crammed up... I won't say rammed; is that thing ever hard enough to ram in anywhere? ...Imagine never being able to get sexual gratification anywhere else, and living with only that sad little excuse for manhood, forever. Of course I have been unfaithful. Think of it, dear Wolfi. – For I know you read this, and regularly. I have seen your greasy fingerprints all over the pages. – Let's take a moment, shall we, and enumerate all the others I have been with?

My brother, first of all. He is a blond lummox, but you should see him: He is hung like a Rhenish cart-horse. And after that... Oh, where to begin? Where, when there have been so many? And they _satisfy_ me, my dear Wolfi. You... Was it not just yesterday, that you were calling me “cold”? I am not cold when there is a man in my bed, but only with such weak castrati as yourself. Who would not be cold, in bed with such?

Interesting thing happened yesterday, Stark is back. How did I find this out? Darling Wolfi... – Picture his face. Picture the shininess of that bald pate of his, the monocle, popping out, swinging too and from from that stupid ribbon. Imagine how my gorge rose, just looking at it. – ...Herr Baron, mein catamite Freund, he comes to me. “Oh, Loki, Loki...” Short of breath, he will die soon, of that heart of his, but not soon enough, I fear. “...Oh look, Loki,” he says, “oh, Loki, look!”

He brings me the news and presents it, as one would a gift. “I, Baron Von Strucker, will give you this, and then you will _love_ me, Loki.” As if anyone could ever love that creeping worm.

Stark will not go for it. He is, if nothing else, his own man. This is what caused the break with the American government. He cared nothing for how they would use the weapons he built, but when they presumed to tell him how to live his life, that is when he blew it all up. He has been on the run since, and does kleine Wolfi really think he will serve such as he? Hydraists, tinpot fascists. No, not even that; they are little boys, playing with their secret meeting-places, and their supposed history, shrouded in the mists of conspiracy-silliness. Stark will laugh in their faces, which is naught more than they deserve.

He was a man, at least. He _is_ a man... Wolfi, if I go to him, it will not be your behest. I will go when he has bested you; think you that he cannot? One man can beat a thousand such as yourself, and he is a man, I know that from direct observation. The body on him... You should see it, Wolfi. You would weep salty tears, fruitless envy; there is no way you can compete with such as he. No way any of you can compete, not your little wurst, or those of any of your compatriots, for I have been with all of them, please do not forget that, mein kleine Wolfi. They were good. Not up to Stark perhaps, but... All of them were better than you.

Nuisance-Thor offered Stark to me too. – Tiresome lump of a man, go back to Mutter und Vater. You'd best hurry, lest they think you one such as I. Your precious inheritance will be gone, no more Von Borsen millions. You never cared about the factories, did you? Because that would have taken skill, and you have no skill. You have no brother anymore, either. I forgot you, the day you stood by and let them... Never mind. Why would I expect more from a lummox? As I was saying...

Is there anything more comical, than the face of one who thinks you should love him? The damp eyes, and the pathetic, supplicant-face. “Mein Bruder,” he says, “ _I_ made him come, _I_ did.” – Fool, Stark is a man. Such a one as you can never _make_ him do anything. – “I made him come,” Thor says. “I told him...” Uggh, what did you tell him, Thor dear? Did you say I was taken from our parents' home, and that you just stood by? It matters nothing to me, of course, after all this time, but think what it says about yourself. ...But, “Come with me now, Loki,” the fool says, “for he wishes to see you, he has not forgotten you, Loki.” Thor, it is not men who do forget, but only fools and hirelings.

I saw him. The more fool I, I went with the lummox. City streets of Berlin, so dingy, as life is dingy these days. Shop-windows, market-stalls, sparse, in this age of scarcity. Bleak, and we went through the bleak streets in our overcoats, hatted, gloved, like shadows, mere wisps of fog with no substance. And kleine Thor, with his stomping tread, his arm, that I thought would melt through my shoulder as sun goes through mist. And we went to his favorite place, to the favorite place of all such as he. Lights still shining, through open doors, the sound of camaraderie, and the smell of beer, not all of it stale. Pull the cab to a halt, and we enter der Augustiner Keller, myself pretending to match Thor's lummox-tread. And Stark was there, I saw him, as we entered.

~~It doesn't matter. He is nothing to me. Where was he, all the years that I was... Where was he when all of it happened? And he looks so fat, so well-fed and happy. How can he be so, when I have suffered... Never mind. Autres temps, autres moeurs. The fool on me for having trusted him, or anyone.~~

Here is kleine Thor's story, for whatever it's worth: There are people here with Stark, a blond man, supposedly an American soldier, and another one, ein Neger. The Neger serves the soldier, one presumes, for this is the way it works in America. Supposedly, so my brother says, those two are here to stop Wolfi and his friends, whom they have decided are a worse threat than Papa Adolf. So, in other words, a wild duck chase... – I believe that is the correct idiom. – ...And Thor thinks this is what brings Stark here too, this foolish game of who is worse than whom. This is Thor; he is wrong, Stark is here for me. This is the wild duck that brings him to Berlin; he thinks I am still human, and can still love him. Poor Stark, one would like to have him get out of here, before his illusions are broken, but such is not how the world works, he will find out the truth, and it will break his heart.

Stark will not kow-tow to Wolfi and his tinpot-conspirators. There will be no toying with Hydraist arcana; as soon expect him to bend the knee before Papa Adolf, after having spurned the fascism of his homeland. Stark is a man, he fought through god knows what to get here, because he still believes, god help him, that a man can live as a man, in this dark, modern world. And he will be disillusioned, and it will be a tragedy, but this is what he will not be: No cabalistic secret-society Hydra-stupidity will fool him, and no dictator, be it Papa Adolf, or any of his ilk, are ever going to break what is most important inside him. Stark will live a man, and he will die a man, perhaps the only real man left in this godforsaken world.

~~One cannot help thinking, what if he could do it? One knows it is a lie, and a distraction; this is my life, this endless round of distractions, this coterie of Hydraist-fools. Still and all, the heart remains... I was going to say hopeful, but let me leave it there: The heart remains. How I wish I could rip it from my chest, and throw it, still beating, into traffic. Let the cabs run over it, let the horses trample it, let me live with no heart, that I would have no heart left to break.~~

Foolishness; I have no heart, just ask mein kleine Wolfi.

Here is the story, as much as I have been able to glean from my sources: Stark is here, he came to Berlin with his friends, the soldier, and the Neger. He is persona non grata, so they say, in his own country, but this does not stop others from courting him here, both my fool of a brother, and Wolfi's Hydraists, some of whom should know better. They are, so I hear, showing him things; I have heard talk of bringing plans along, when some of them have gone to meet him. His advice is being sought... Why? Do these idiots really think he would help them in any way? But never underestimate the stupidity of the Hydraists. I am sure that is what they think, and when they are disappointed, I will _laugh_.

~~I will laugh, and I will not stop laughing. And Wolfi will try and stop me, and he will fail, and then one by one, all the others of them will surely try too. I will laugh until I die laughing. Isn't that what this world is, my friends, it's a comedy, albeit a dark one. I will do it the honor of laughing, and I will go, and that will be the end of me.~~

Darling Wolfi, please arrange more meetings with unser Freund Stark. Do it right away, please arrange many more such meetings, and bring all your little Hydraist conspirators along with you. Please bring me too, and I will watch, while a real man humiliates you all.

This is urgent, and who knows when he will read my journal again? I will tell him in person.

 


	11. From the Diary of Anthony Stark, Esq. #2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ai, ai, ai, ai,  
> Have you ever danced in the tropics?  
> With that hazy, lazy,  
> Like, kind of crazy,  
> South American Way?  
> Ai, ai, ai, ai,  
> Have you ever kissed in the moonlight?  
> In the grand and glorious,  
> Gay, notorious,  
> South American Way?”  
> \-- Carmen Miranda, “South American Way”

~~Loki, I'm sorry about last night. What was it I said? I don't think I said anything. I'm not “their friend,” Loki, I'm your friend. We used to be more than friends, Loki, remember? I want to go back to that, I'll do whatever... I'll do anything. Just talk to me, okay? Just stop ignoring me.~~

I don't care what Rogers says, and I don't care about Europe. Europe can go hang itself for all I care, all I care about is Loki.

Schmidt said he'd arrange passage out of here for us. For Loki and me, he said Argentina. I can live with Argentina, I got pretty good at Spanish when I was living in Mexico. And Loki was saying he didn't like it, but that was just because all the Hydraists were around, when we're there, it'll be different. And then Rogers said, “Well, what about Hydra,” and then I said... I don't know.

I said, “To hell with Hydra,” and I stand by that. Dammit Steve, dammit, Sam, I've done my share, haven't I? I worked with the Mexicans, and with the Sons of Liberty. And I'm going to go back to it, by the time Hydra's a problem, I'll be back ready for action. But not now, right now I'm taking care of Loki.

They've got a Fascist government in Argentina too, I guess. Some kind of military dictatorship or something like that, I'm not sure of the exact details. Whole world's going Fascist, and who are we anyway, to think we can stop the tide of History? Standing in front of the whole world and yelling stop, what the hell good did that ever do anybody? Good way to get run over, good way to die, or worse than die. ~~Good way to drive yourself crazy, like Loki.~~

Loki's not crazy. Anybody would be worn-out and unhappy, after what he's been through. All he needs is some rest.

God damn Steve, doesn't he get it? Can't I help him, you've got to see that I have to, don't you? Why can't you understand that, I want to do what's right, but if it... If Loki...

Goddamn Steve, I told him right from the start, that I was coming over here to rescue Loki. And he said to me, these are his exact words, he said, “Fine, Stark, that's understood.” And I told him then, that I'd help him out as much as I could, but I never made my priorities anything but clear. And I will be back, but I've got to do what Loki needs first. I've got to help him, and I will, and I refuse to feel ashamed about it.

Pampas land, Schmidt said. Plains, a lot of grass, cattle-farming. Like Texas in South America, I could tolerate Texas. A lot of gauchos, which are like South American cowboys. It actually sounds a lot like Mexico. And Schmidt said he could help us get a place down there, he said he's got plenty of connections. I told him I don't want anything big, and he said, “Fine, fine, I'll make some calls, put you in touch with some people.”

Half of Hydra's down there, apparently, in Argentina, I mean. Schmidt says they're pure scientists, and of course the Nazis can't have that, can they? Politicizing everything, we saw the same thing back home, after Windrip got in. Suddenly you've got Nazi Physics, or Corpo Physics, or what have you. I suppose the Italians had Fascist Physics too, back when Mussolini was in charge, or who knows, maybe they just sent all good scientists to Germany. Point is though, the good ones? All Hydraists now, that's what Schmidt says, and apparently they're making a base for themselves in Argentina.

Hell, I'm probably doing Rogers a favor by going down there. Like having eyes on the inside, I can watch, report back about what the Hydraists are up to. What the hell good would it do anyway, just stopping the ones that are still here? Better to wait until they're all together again anyway, isn't it?

That'll take some time. The Nazis won't go down without a fight, you only have to look at Italy and France, to know that. And what have the Hydraists got? Good men scattered all over the place, iffy deals with a few guys inside Germany, who could go back the other way any time? And the bomb of course, if there really is a bomb, which I doubt.

Loki needs to get away. He needs rest, and good food... I don't want to take him to goddamn Argentina. Pampas, and gauchos, and tango music? Another Fascist government, just like the one he left, either that, or we're skulking around hole-and-corner style, with the Hydraists? ...But I can't to think about what Loki really needs, I can't get what he really needs, not in this world we live in, I can't. Have to look at the real world: Reality-wise, what can I get him? Peaceful home on the pampas. I hear the beef's good down there, can't beat good beef to build a man up. They say it's like Italy, lots of wine, lots of music. Tango music. Get Loki better again, him and me can go out, maybe dance some tangos together. I'll get one of those hats like Valentino, and he can have the rose in his teeth, it'll be just like _Blood and Sand_.

God, that takes me back, and you know what? I wish I could go back. 1920's, those were some great years, get out the old cocktail shaker and mix up some martinis, but you'd better be careful, you don't know what they used to make the gin. Izzy and Moe on the front pages, and Coolidge in the White House, good old Silent Cal. And Sister Aimee telling everyone she was kidnapped, back in '26, later it came out she was really shacked up with some guy or another, up in Carmel.

Wish I could take Loki to Carmel, instead of goddamned Argentina. Or anywhere in California, wish there still was a California to take him to, instead of goddamned Pacific Province, or whatever the hell it is that the Corpos are calling it. Wish I could take him anywhere in America... Or Germany, for that matter, Germany's his home. There is no place else though. That's what life is, these days, there's nowhere peaceful to go, all you can do is find someplace that the Fascists haven't finished ruining yet. And they're in Argentina, probably they'll have it ruined pretty soon too, but Loki doesn't need very much time. I'll take him there, and I'll get him strong again, and then...

I hate Hitler. After what he did to Loki, I could kill him and never lose the smile on my face. And I hate the Hydraists too, but you know what they say, sometimes you have to make a deal with the devil. Enemy of my enemy is my friend, which is something I heard somebody say about working with Stalin. De Gaulle, maybe? Or somebody said he said it?

Never mind, not important. I hate the goddamn Hydraists, though, they're like the scientists in the Sci Fi mags, all cold eyes, and pure theory, no matter who gets hurt. I hate the way they talked to me. “Oh, we can do it,” they said, “it's just a matter of getting someplace suitable for proper experimentation.” And I said to them, “What about radiation sickness, Marie Curie etcetera, what about all the people who are going to get exposed?” And they just look at me with those scary-cold faces. Oldest line in the book, “You can't make an omelet,” they say, “without breaking some eggs.”

Eggs. That's all lives are to these people, a lot of broken eggs. But the _work_ , the work is what matters. I'd better not take long in Argentina with Loki, a few more Hydraists over there, a few more years... Whole pampas is going to be glowing like a radium watch-dial, and all the gauchos will be dying of radiation sickness, no more tangos for them.

Goddammit it. I just wish there was someplace where you could go, where you'd get away from all of it. But of course there's not, all you have is what you have.

~~Loki, let me hold you. Talk to me, Loki, stop turning away. I'm not “allied” with them, I'm not their “friend,” I'm not “in their pockets.” I hate those bastards Loki, I hate them as much as you do, but can't you see that we need them? Let me get you out of here, that's all, and then we'll be together, and it'll be just us. Argentina can't be all that bad.~~

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We'll meet again,  
> Don't know where  
> Don't know when,  
> But I know we'll meet again, some sunny day.  
> Keep smiling through,  
> Just like you always do,  
> 'Till the blue skies drive the dark clouds far away.
> 
> So will you please say hello,  
> To the folks that I know,  
> Tell them I won't be long.  
> They'll be happy to know,  
> That as you saw me go,  
> I was singing this song.”  
> – Vera Lynn, “We'll Meet Again”

You know, your plan's stupid? I told you, didn't I? Half of their scientists are out of the country already? Look, let's be realistic, who are you going to get? Schmidt, Whatsisname, maybe a couple of the others. So you really think that's going to stop them? I've been saying from the start, what would make sense would be to wait, get 'em when they're all together. ...Yeah, in Argentina, we go down there, and we get 'em. Haven't you ever wanted to see South America? I'll fly us in, it'll be great. I hear the steaks are good, down there.

...No, I mean yeah, I mean it is a stupid plan, but... Dammit, Steve, I'm in, I don't care if we have to mop up again later on. I don't care how many more times, or how many more places we have to go, and clean up Hydraists, and stop them building their damn weapons. And I don't care if you're right or wrong about them building one here... You are wrong by the way, though. It'll be a dirty bomb, at worst, you just watch.

Simple, basic lesson here, Steve: You understand about splitting atoms, right? Fission they call it, that's the process. They showed me an article from '39... – How technical do you want me to get here? – Basically, there's a process you can do, that'll make a huge explosion, but it's not something you can just do, okay? I mean, you need equipment, lots of equipment, and supplies and things...

Schmidt and Von Strucker talked to me a lot about that, apparently it's their best recruiting tool. This has been in the works for a long time, it's a German idea originally, only Hitler nixed the idea. Because he said he didn't need it, and because a lot of the best nuclear scientists are Jewish, and some other things. So that's where the Hydraists come in, that's the thing with Argentina. They get to the scientists by promising 'em, down there, they can do it right. And they've been shipping scientists down there, lots of 'em, more than I told you about. But up here's like a skeleton crew by now. Whatever they have got, it'll be cheap, and it'll be basic, just something they can do really easy, and maybe take over Germany.

...Also, has it occurred to you what'll happen if the damn thing goes off? The bomb, I mean, if they have one up here? Well, you understand the principle, right? ...No, I guess you wouldn't, would you? Okay, I'll explain.

Explosive device, okay? Like, a small-scale one, maybe fits into a briefcase. Then the bomb's filled with radioactive particles... You know, like radium? Radiation sickness? Something to get anyone who doesn't die in the initial explosion. And that's us if we do this wrong Steve, if we're not really careful, and we're within range and it goes off... Ugly way to die, Steve. Remember Madame Curie?

...No, I am in, regardless. I was just playing devil's advocate a little, trying to get you to understand. But after last night, after I talked to Loki...

He talked to me, Steve. You remember Loki don't you, the reason I came along on this raid of yours in the first place? Well, Thor came and got me yesterday, apparently he tried to kill himself. Three bottles of veronal tablets. Thor said it was probably an accident, but nobody drugs like that, it was intentional. And they found the bottles with him, but thank god, he was still breathing, and they were able to get him to the hospital in time. And Thor said they pumped his stomach, and hopefully he'll be okay.

And I saw him, Steve. And I talked to him. Thor pulled some strings to get me in. They've got Loki on some kind of watch, he's not supposed to have any visitors but family, but... I'm starting to really appreciate Thor, Steve, he really seems to care about his brother.

...Anyway, like I was saying: Thor snuck me in last night, and I saw Loki, and I talked to him. And he told me things, Steve. – He was just waking up, I think I was the first one in there. Thor said he thought I was the one his brother would most likely want to see, and he let me go in there before him, which is one more thing I appreciate. – And he told me things, Loki, Steve, Jesus God, what he told me...

I'm going to kill Von Strucker. One way or the other Steve, him and Schmidt, and all the rest of the goddamn, whoremongering bastards, when I think what _they_ did... All of 'em, Steve, every single bastard one of them.

Steve, this isn't jealousy, I mean, it's not only jealousy. I mean, if he'd wanted it... If Loki had wanted it, I mean, I know I'm not the only man he's ever been with... – Sorry, Steve. – But I was saying, I know he's been with other men, with lots of 'em, probably, definitely more than me. And I don't care, don't care what he did when he was in the camps either, for that matter. Everybody does that stuff, it's survival in there. Anything you can use for an advantage, and if that's your body, so be it, at least it's staying alive. Never happened to me, no one fancied me like that I guess, but I saw it happen plenty of times, and I never thought anything less of the men that did it.

Granted, I'd kill those guys too, if I could get hold of 'em. Guess I'm in an angry mood today, Steve. You should take advantage, you know, strike while the iron is hot?

What really makes me mad about this? I mean, the worst part of all of it? They said they were rescuing him, Steve. That's what they told Thor, he told me, they gave him this line, “You can't do it, Thor,” they said, “but we can.” _Rescuing_. Yeah, he was _rescued_ , all right, brought to Berlin from wherever he was, to be passed around like a party favor by goddamn Von Strucker, and the rest of 'em. They used him, and handed him off off. – He told me about it last night, Steve.

Listen, I'll go in, okay? Like you were saying? You and Sam though, you have to stay away, I can do the whole thing myself. I'll bring the device in, like you were talking about, and... And I'll try to get out before it goes off, maybe I can manage it.

Don't really care if I do manage, though, I have to say. And I don't care if there is a dirty bomb, or if I set it off while I'm doing this. What I didn't tell you before, Steve? Thor got me in to see Loki again this morning. And I talked to him... I tried talking to him...

You don't want to hear this, Steve. We've got a good working relationship, but we're not friends, not really...

Aww, to hell with it, though. How much longer do I have, a few hours? A day or so? We who are about to die will tell you our whole life's story, here goes: I talked to Loki, Steve, and he wouldn't answer, he wouldn't even look at me. And I know why he did talk last night, it's probably because he didn't know who I was, he was just waking up and all. This is going to sound stupid, Steve, but... Goddammit, I can't say it.

...No, Steve. No, it's all right, I appreciate the words, but it's okay, really. Maybe what I had... what Loki and I had... Maybe it wasn't meant to last. What's there to get all soppy about, so, one invert drops another invert, big deal, right? Whole thing's unnatural, that's what they say. No, you want to know the only thing I'm sorry about, Steve? I just wish I could get the whole damn lot of them. Whole damn Hydra operation, I wish I believed you that this is all it's going to take, and we can stop 'em dead just like that. We can't, of course, there's too many of 'em have escaped to South America already. You're going to have to stop 'em over there too Steve, or we're going to have to, depending if I make it out of there.

But I will kill Von Strucker. And Schmidt, and Zola, and... Whatsisname? One they call Whitehall, I think it's Reinhardt, really? Him, I'm gonna kill him too, and every single other one of 'em that went anywhere near Loki. That filth like that should take him, and use him, and break him... No, I don't care if I die. I'll rest easy in my grave, if I can take those bastards with me. I'm in, Steve.

 


	13. From the Diary of Loki Von Borsen #3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> GARCIN: “This bronze. Yes, now's the moment; I'm looking at this thing on the mantelpiece, and I understand that I'm in hell. I tell you, everything's been thought out beforehand. They knew I'd stand at the fireplace stroking this thing of bronze, with all those eyes intent on me. Devouring me. What? Only two of you? I thought there were more; many more. So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the 'burning marl.' Old wives' tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. HELL IS-OTHER PEOPLE!”
> 
> ESTELLE: “My darling! Please – “
> 
> GARCIN: “No, let me be. She is between us. I cannot love you when she's watching.”
> 
> ESTELLE: “Right! In that case, I'll stop her watching.” (She picks up the PAPER knife and stabs Inez several times.) 
> 
> INEZ: “But, you crazy creature, what do you think you're doing? You know quite well I'm dead.”  
> – _No Exit_ , Jean Paul Sartre

Amusingly, I am at home now. I am at someone's home, Thor's, if one would be entirely accurate. Meine kleine bruder, or so he thinks himself, for one such as I has no family. And such a queer, sad little place it is too. So temporary, a pied à terre, useful only until Herr Vater dies, and he claims the estate in Brandenburg for his own. And where will I be then? I will not be there, certainly, for such as I is an asset to no gathering, and perhaps I will be nowhere.

Perhaps I will not exist. Ah, nonexistence, such a simple state, and yet so difficult to accomplish. To die... How is it that the Englishman Shakespeare called it, “To die,” was that not what he said, “it is to sleep, that is all.” And after that, some maundering, foolish fears of an eternity in Hell, and no understanding at all, that for some of us, Hell is right here on Earth. I met a Frenchman one time, an amusing man, somebody or other brought him to a Hydraist dinner one night, I forget who. Charming fellow, hiding behind spectacles, his face perpetually worried. Certain things happened after the party that night, I remember; M. Jean Paul and his much prettier petite amie joined in, and it was, shall we say, entertaining?

M. Jean Paul was well-hung, and he knew how to do things. Many things, and darling Wolfi was so very happy to do them. After that, we talked. He bored us with all his talk about Fascism, and an artist's role, and I don't remember all the details. One thing he said that stood out: “Hell is other people.” Full-stop, there is the truth right there; it is all the truth anyone needs.

Sometimes, Hell is one's self. Many, many times, this is so. But I must “save my strength,” so dear Thor, my lummox-brother says to me, time and again. Soon someone will be coming to take pen and paper away from me, I must write what I need to write before that happens.

There is a plot. One is not privy to these things of course, one is... How to say it? ...A plaything? One is a repository into which dirt is spewed, by dirty men, this was my fate before making the mistake with the veronal, and it will be my fate again soon enough, once my lummox of a brother grows tired of me. But one hears things, even such lowly creatures as myself. There is a darling fellow, Claus something, I don't recall his last name. He started meeting with Wolfi and the others, oh, who knows how long ago, and he had a plan, and he was in need of assistance.

Isn't it funny how low poor Adolf has fallen? Men such as Claus, soldiers, they do not think. They are sheep, like meine kleine bruder, and they will always go baahing after whichever bellwether appears strongest. Adolf today, who knows who tomorrow? Poor Adolf is strong no longer, he cannot provide what he has promised, even for those who are closest. And there are wars, so many wars, and so many other reasons why his sheep are beginning their desertion. Darling Claus is one such. He spoke, the night I met him, of attending a meeting with kleine Fuhrer, he said he desired to carry a small bomb in with him, even though it would be suicide for himself.

This is how real men are, they dare such risks as these. Such a one is Stark too, as I always knew him to be. But I do not wish to speak of him.

Stark angers me, his foolish, foolish plot, concocted by whom? It is the other one, the brainless blond; typical American type, he wishes to do what Americans always do, and rush headlong into danger. He does not understand, they are caught between two enemies. What achievement if they stop Wolfi and the Hydraists, only to be destroyed by Adolf? ~~Stupid Rogers and his stupid plan, that is going to get Tony killed, but I don't care about that. If he must be a stupid American, well then he must pay.~~

My time is limited, Thor has placed such restrictions on me. “No pen and paper,” which comes so easily to a quadruped such as he, who does not write. And, “You nearly died,” he tells me, as though I am supposed to care. And, “I will protect you, Loki, I will keep you safe,” and he forces me into this bed, and makes me stay here, and sets a nurse over me. All too soon, he will return, Herr Heimdall, for of course I am a lunatic, and I need a male nurse.

Herr Heimdall who thinks he sees everything, but he sees nothing. How difficult would it be to evade him, if one had purpose enough?

What is my purpose? Have I one? Conflicting impulses, if I spoke to Stark, could I stop this stupid endeavour of his? And do I wish to speak to him? What was his fate while I was vacationing chez Adolf, and having my so-varied adventures? Did anything at all happen to harm him? He seems unscathed, certainly.

He was a playboy, when I knew him; he is a complete playboy still, taking his stupid little risks, with Rogers, and the Neger. Let them have their “jolly adventure,” which will kill them; I will save the “dirty bomb” and detonate it myself, later. Such devices kill only a few immediately, I know this from hearing many, many conversations. Slow death, what a waste; I want to _see_ Wolfi die, right in front of me, and I will be satisfied with no less. Anyhow, what chance that I could evade Herr Heimdall, long enough to switch the briefcases?

I know where they are. Two briefcases, identical, for I have seen them. One contains the “dirty bomb,” and the other... Poor sad little Wolfi, always so fearful, “What's the risk,” he asks again and again, “what chance that our men will die also?” Silly Wolfi, who was wetting his pants at the thought of the slow death that comes with radiation poisoning. Like a factory-girl, after too long painting watch-faces, so slow, so undignified.

It would be amusing, certainly. But I will _watch_ you die, kleine Wolfi. You will die at my hands, I, whom you used, and pretended to love. I will detonate the bomb at a time of _my_ choosing. What care I about Stark and his friend, and their jolly American adventure? They are Americans, they will survive, and emerge with a jest on their lips, like Douglas Fairbanks. Always joking, always heroic, and always so unscathed. Let them play their game and see what happens, it will not end well for them.

Hydraist headquarters: Such a sad little place in the suburbs, I understand the man who used to own it was liquidated. And does that make him any different from the rest of us, living here under Papa Adolf? No difference, except some are eliminated sooner than others, and sooner or later, we all will have our turn. I have been there many times, and I know all of it so well. There is a safe. I have watched it being opened; I was there doing dirty things, but none there minded me, for they never do. I saw the contents: Two briefcases, because of course they will never get rid of anything, once it has been built. Two bombs, first the one that had poor Wolfi so fearful, and then the other one, which dear Claus is to carry with him to Adolf. Two bombs, which could be switched so easily, by one who knew the password to the safe, but then I could not watch them die. I will wait.

Imagine all of Hydra dead... Not all, for there are the ones in South America. ...Imagine every one of them who touched me, who dirtied me... And me standing over them, laughing, before I die myself, inevitably, of radiation poisoning. And am I supposed to give this up for _Stark_?

I will not, I will have my revenge. Stark will be fine surely, and if he is not, it is his own stupid fault. Stupid hero, Don Quixote, tilting at windmills. Stupid man, who will rush in with his American friends... Like gangbusters, that is the idiom one uses. They will rush in, and kill some, and think themselves victorious, before kleine Adolf swoops in and arrests them, leaving Hydra to remake itself But I can destroy all of them, and I will.

Thor doesn't talk about these things around me, of course, because I am a “lunatic”, and must always be protected. Silly lummox-brother, can you hear yourself, your loud, booming voice? “Boom, boom, Heimdall, boom, boom, Stark, boom, boom, Freitag Nachtmitag, boom, boom, just three days and then...”

“And then won't Loki be happy,” my dear lummox said to the estimable Herr Heimdall, “and then...” Sad tone of supplication in the voice, “And then he'll start to get better, won't he?”

And I don't recall what Herr Heimdall said to that, and I don't particularly care. In two days, the meeting, and Claus and his little bomb. And after it detonates, they will scatter, and be back in headquarters by the next day, when Tony goes in, “like gangbusters.” Two failures, or at most, guarded successes. And then sooner or later when my house-arrest is over, I will finish the job. Beautiful explosion, of a beautiful “dirty” bomb, scorched earth, no Hydraists, possibly in all of Germany.

And no Wolfi. And he will die, looking into _my_ eyes. Why would I give that up just for Stark? What is he to me? Did I ask him to show up here with his friend?

 


	14. Notice:  This story is officially abandoned

This story just doesn't accurately reflect what it feels like, living in a country where democracy is being destroyed. I think I can do better, and I'm using the same theme for another story. I think I come a lot closer to what in "Make Tonight a Wonderful Thing," but that's just a one-shot. And I have all these scared feelings right now, and I need a story going where I can express some of them. New one is "Final Cut," I'm not asking you to read it, but you know, if you wanted to? Anyway though, I'll keep this story up for now, but I don't know what its fate is going to be longterm.


End file.
